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Title: Pseudoanarchist Federation
Author: Anonymous
Date: 21.11.2020
Language: en
Topics: post-left, criticism, anarchist federation, insurrection, critique, anarchist federation, organization
Source: https://pl.anarchistlibraries.net/library/anonim-federacja-pseudoanarchistyczna
Notes: Translated from Polish

Anonymous

Pseudoanarchist Federation

Translator’s note

Even though this text was originally supposed to be directed towards the

Anarchist Federation in Poland (Federacja Anarchistyczna), it wouldn’t

be a far stretch to say that it shouldn’t be directed towards every

single "officially unofficial" leading anarchist organization around the

world as well.

While these massive (and supposedly) anarchist organizations monopolize

anarchism by telling individuals how to properly "do anarchism"

(whatever that means) and by ostracizing those, who do not share the

same principles and praxis [1], there are those who confront the

majority and act against it, even on the surface level, by writing texts

similar to this one.

Insurrectionism in Poland is dead; in fact, it has never truly lived.

But so is anarcho-syndicalism - dead; it is a rotten corpse, wandering

since before the Second World War, first through the indirectly

anti-anarchist regime of so-called real socialism, and then through the

neoliberal wastelands of Polish catholic conservatism in hope - or to be

more precise - in belief, of being revived. Besides two really small

anarcho-syndicalist unions (actually, one of them doesn't consider

itself anarcho-syndicalist, but for their advantage, let's suppose there

are two), anarcho-syndicalism isn't really a thing. And yet, it is the

pompous (and mainly) anarcho-syndicalist AF that is patronizing, due to

it dominating anarchism in Poland.

I did not translate "Pseudoanarchist Federation" to annoy the Polish AF,

neither to publicly complain how much the AF here sucks – it does, but

not in its entirety, since it is varied. The AF has been doing a lot of

good for some workers, for other anarchists, for certain oppressed

groups, and even for anarchism itself. I am not trying to diminish the

influence of Polish anarcho-syndicalism on the movement of today or to

completely eradicate it. I just want the anarcho-outsiders to know, that

if the following translated words relate to you and your experiences you

had with the local anarcho-monopolist, you are not alone with these

thoughts and observations – no matter where you’re from, who you are, or

what your anarchist background is.

I am not the original author of this call, but in a sense, I am the

co-author, just as you, just as anybody else: not because I wrote it

alongside the one who did, because I didn’t, but because I subscribe to

what has been written here.

Pseudoanarchist federation

These workers’ revolutions, these proletarian utopias, these pamphlets

and newspapers of yours – who cares about them, really?

The revolutionary situation has been, is, and will always be here, if

only you filter the picture of everyday life through enough lenses. So

where are your militias, proudly replacing the Polish flag flying on the

Sejm building [2] with black and red banners? Let's face it - there are

none because nobody needs that. There shall be no more heroic clashes on

the barricades - these dreams have died, if they were even still alive

at all, together with the Paris Commune. It's still better than the

syndicalist and anarcho-communist pipe dreams that didn't even get to

become overdue as they never were valid. The 21st century is a time of

ubiquitous cameras, police states with a human face, cyberdystopias

adorned equally with Coca-Cola advertising banners, and corporations

boasting of producing green, "friendly" energy.

You are the first to shout after Durutti that "the only church that

enlightens is a burning church". At the same time, you wash your hands

of it and mumble embarrassedly about your friendly social image when

angry youngsters set fire to some Christian shrine of suffering in

Bumfuck Nowhere. You applaud when you see pictures of puppets of bishops

hanging on gallows from an overpass somewhere across the ocean but you

do nothing so that instead of these puppets hung those who every day

turn people into serfs, pigs, ready to be slaughtered with smiles on

their faces. Why is it that on the bridges of Warsaw [3] there is not

even a puppet of the altar boy and nun raping Cardinal, let alone the

Cardinal himself?

You proudly hand out hundreds of leaflets and newspapers at your

demonstrations to liberals and social democrats from rich families who

have no conception of suffering, while your comrades, who are squatting

tenement houses forgotten by the system, burn them in their stoves. No

amount of talk about revolution, printed by you on cheap paper, can warm

their hearts. It's a good thing that from time to time they at least

warm their freezing, wire- and glass-scarred hands. Are you ailing,

tired, gripped by depression? That's all right, you don't have to build

bombs or clear cities of fascist garbage with your own hands. Just don't

preach your pacifist morals to the fighters whose blood is spilling on

the city pavement before your eyes.

You meet in your cramped apartments, which this shitty system has thrown

at you like a few scraps of meat from the lord's table. While you are

having your revolutionary-worker discussions about nothing, real

proletarian youths are crouched down smoking cigarettes outside your

housing blocks. You hasten to call them rednecks and chavs [4], while

they are fed their fascist propaganda by patriotic rappers or

national-socialist rock bands. Nazis don't even have to try, they don't

even have to steal the proletariat from you, because it's simply not

yours.

Let the trumpets of wrath blow, by the deities of vengeance, slumbering

deep within each and every one of us. Let cathedrals burn because we

don't want any Christian theology of liberation. Let the walls of the

Sejm crumble into dust, for we do not want your National Trade Union

Parliament [5] there. Let the bones of officers and politicians be

broken, for we want no allied policemen and revolutionary prophets.

We want war. And we fight it, every day. Why don't you finally join in?

[1] i.e. the historically mainly anarcho-syndicalist AF in Poland,

probably due to the fear of lacking its pro-social reputation in the

eyes of… who knows who exactly - probably the mythical "masses", opposes

individualist, nihilist, and insurrectionist anarchist schools of

thought, claiming that these unorthodox (non-)ideologies only hurt the

image of anarchism and in addition provide nothing for anarchism’s sake

[2] the lower house of the bicameral parliament of Poland; the most

important and most recognizable political building for the Polish

society

[3] the Polish capital

[4] Sebastiany [Seby] i Karyny – a pejorative term typically describing

teens and young adults from poor families associated with pathological

behavior; Seba(stian) is a man’s name, and Karyna – a woman’s name.

[5] Ogólnokrajowy Parlament Związków Zawodowych – this is probably a

reference to the All-Poland Alliance of Trade Unions (OgĂłlnopolskie

Porozumienie ZwiÄ…zkĂłw Zawodowych (OPZZ)), implying that we are not

interested in participating in the anarcho-syndicalist struggle, whose

objective is to be as controlling and shitty, as the OPZZ