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Title: Against The Tide Author: Gustavo Rodríguez Date: July 3, 2021 Language: en Topics: Anti-civ, anarchist movement, critique of leftism Source: Retrieved on 30th November 2021 from https://darknights.noblogs.org/post/2021/07/15/against-the-tide-gustavo-rodriguez/ Notes: Published in Planet Earth.
«Vulgarly it is held that the «great mass» could not remain without
religion; the communists extend that claim.»
Max Stirner, My Enjoyment of Myself, in The Only One and His Property.
«To see what we have in front of our noses requires a constant
struggle.»
George Orwell, In front of your nose.
Contrary to what all the verbal diarrhea of post-modern neo-Leninism
claims about the so-called «social movements»,[1] the novelty of these
movements does not lie in the replacement of trade unions and
traditional political parties, but in the motivational structure of the
subjects involved; That is, in the convergence of perceptions around
multiple factors (economic-socio-cultural) that nourish the collective
longing for the welfare state and the labor society and, through
processes of social mobilization, constitute a new institutional force
that serves as a platform for the different fascisms -whether black,
brown, red or whatever color they are given in order to persuade the
«masses»- and paves the way for populist leaders.
Meanwhile, the social scientists (neo-Marxians and/or proto-populists)
juggle a thousand and one times to semantically accommodate
«institutionalization», giving the concept a one hundred and eighty
degree turn so that it is grammatically instrumental for them; that is,
hiding the intentions of co-optation of the struggles and forced
integration to the «new» domination.
In this way, they reconceptualize «institutionalization» and define it
as a «mediation» (between the so-called civil society and the regime)
that redesigns the forms of participation, the mechanisms of
representation and the devices of legitimization, enhancing the
«transforming» character of social mobilization in total «recreation of
the movementist tradition».[2] In the words of the merolico mayor
Boaventura de Souza Santos: showing the emancipatory horizons that they
recreate as agents of social change, by participating in the
construction of hegemonic ideas that drive the politicization of
reality.[3]
Despite this evidence, the critique of the instituting maneuver of
«social movements» has been mute in our tents. The shameless silences in
the face of these instituting vessels -which suffocate individual
breathing in the forced gasps of the movementist ritual-, have
contributed to the theoretical-practical confusion that today plagues
our circles, facilitating the imposition of alien programs and the
adoption of the logic of the enemy (diametrically opposed to our desires
for total emancipation). Instead of drawing a crucial dividing line,
which establishes the definitive separation of the instituting struggles
and punctuates the consistent action of contemporary anarchic grammar,
an ambiguous discourse, loaded with vague expositions and excess of
positivity, has been encouraged.
During the turn of the century, «social movements» burst onto the scene
as a «socio-political event». This advent was framed in the context of
the reaffirmation of «excluded identities» and the heterogeneization (in
the sense of great «diversity») of demands; assuming itself as an active
form of contestation that took shape in the face of specific contexts of
domination through the «transversal linking» of struggles, delimiting
its margins of action through assembly and consensus.
It was in this period of «movementist irruption» that this instituting
strategy came to drastically influence sectors of our tents closer to
autonomous theorizations than to anarchist praxis but, also in proven
comrades who turned out to be obnubilated by the «grammar of
mobilization».[4] These influences on anarchism, although they began to
register a few decades earlier under the influence of Marxism
sixtiesayochero (read situationism, marcuseanismo, dauvéismo, etc.. ),
would be more palpable from the mobilization against «globalization» in
Seattle (1999), the counter-summit of Genoa (2001) and the subsequent
reproduction ad infinitum of the «alterglobalist social forums»,
manipulated by Leninism (which was barely executing the necessary
metamorphosis in order to chameleonically place itself in the new
scenario) and, social democracy, by means of cover such as the
International Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for
Aid to the Citizen (ATTAC), Global Exchange, etc.
At that time, the camouflages of postmodern Leninism assumed the
tonalities demanded by the political «climate» of each region, designing
tailor-made uniforms in accordance with the theater of operations and
imposing new «political grammars» (alter-globalization, neo-Zapatistas,
autonomists, anti-fascists, communists and many other «istas» that
appeared as the occasion required) that renewed their repertoires of
action and activated devices of legitimacy; introducing a pragmatic
twist at the time that allowed them to «accumulate forces» towards the
realization of their objective: the seizure of power through the
institutionalization of social movements.
The grammar of mobilization is going to articulate a motley set of
antagonistic actions — each one with its own language-, forming a
bouquet of discourses and modalities of confrontation that, in reality,
respond to the motivations of those involved («work for all», «decent
housing», «free education» or, in the case of the most «politicized»,
«socialization of the economy», «end of neoliberalism», to cite some
agglutinating examples); being subsumed in a generic destituting
substratum («Movimiento piquetero» in Argentina, «Movimiento de los
indignados» in the Spanish State, «Movimiento de Regeneración Nacional»
in Mexico, «Black Lives Matter Movement» in America or, «Mouvement des
gilets jaunes» in France, Belgium and the Netherlands) which subsumes
them in a generic destituting substratum, Belgium and the Netherlands)
that traps them in the daily dynamics of the internal construction of
mobilization and prevents them from establishing differences between the
various grammars and, deepening the incompatibility of organizational
styles, methods of struggle and, in the end, of objectives. With this
pragmatic perspective, the movementist melting pot is imprisoned -in the
forms of political construction and the modes of distribution of power —
in three grammars: classist, populist and autonomist. All of them alien
to the contemporary anarchic grammar, indissolubly linked to the
implacable exercise of our desires for total liberation and destruction
of the existing.
The specificity of the anarchic grammar far exceeds the movementist
grammar – and therefore, the classist, populist and autonomist grammars
– by not being reduced to forms of political construction and not being
limited to public interventions aimed at «transforming» or «ratifying»
(as the case may be[5]) domination.
The contemporary anarchic grammar -with its spontaneous emulsions-, must
be conceived as the praxis that constitutes us as anarchists and confers
us our distinctive and non-transferable personality in the radical and
unwavering confrontation of the system of domination, endowing our daily
actions with intelligibility; This makes clear the tension that embodies
the concreteness of praxis in the processes of elaboration of a critical
assumption that ratifies the lines of escape and the necessary ruptures
with the hegemonic social discourses that try to delimit the specificity
of our struggle.
In spite of the fact that some outdated tendencies within our tents
(anarcho-syndicalists and anarcho-communists), share the economicist
optics of the class grammar and, bet on the concretion of a Social
Revolution that reorganizes the relations between classes and transforms
-through the «direct management of the means of production»[6] – the
regime of capitalist accumulation into a productive system at the
service of the dispossessed, this grammar lacks points of encounter with
the contemporary anarchist grammar which has definitively broken with
the utopian vision of anarchism and has assumed Anarchy as a dis-utopian
tension, putting into practice its destructive will.
The class grammar, starting from determinist structuralism, assumes the
dogma of the inexorable development of the «class struggle», positioning
itself as the «revolutionary vanguard of the exploited class», which it
assures to be called to lead to victory. Its obsession with «class
consciousness» has led it to subsume, without regard, the rest of the
struggles, obstinate in demonstrating the veracity of the communist
program.
For its part, the populist grammar — which inexplicably also has fans in
the most retrograde sectors of our tents — has taken on a leading role
in recent decades as a «grammar of articulation» or «integration» within
the grammar of mobilization, promoting the (re)construction of the
«popular political subject» under the premise of «the inclusion of the
excluded in the social order», the defense of «popular sovereignty» and
the production of «hope». The populist grammar, in turn, is identified
with the nationalist ideology and its cultural, ethnic, class and/or
religious claims, aimed at the construction of «identity»; which favors
the development of charismatic leaderships that invoke the emotionality
of the masses and promote the strengthening of such «identity» as a
vehicle for the transformation of the social order.
The autonomist grammar, centered on assembly mechanisms as a «space for
deliberation and the search for consensus», is equally incompatible with
contemporary anarchic grammar; However, its attachment to «territorial
work» linked to the construction of popular power as a «process of
accumulation of forces from the bottom up» is attractive to some very
peculiar «anarchist» circles (neoplataformists, anarchozapatists and
libertarian autonomists), which emphasize the necessary reconstruction
of a «social project», extolling «misery» and faith in «those from
below» as cardinal ingredients of that grammar of integration with an
instituting vocation -opposed to Anarchy-, ignoring that both variables
have historically constituted the essence of fascism.
Nothing more alien to the contemporary anarchic grammar than the
classist, populist and autonomist grammars. However, we cannot avoid the
imminent danger that those symbiotic (residual) elements that inhabit
our tents under generic labels («subversives», «rebels»,
«revolutionaries», «anti-capitalists», «antagonists» and/or
«contestants»),[7] end up at the service of the culture of Power,
seduced by these instituting grammars.
Looked at as a whole, and now in perspective, the rupturist tensions
that took shape at the beginning of the 21^(st) century within the
contemporary anarchic war, were too many and too deep to remain trapped
in the instituting grammars. A new power, decidedly anti-social and
anti-civilization, claimed for those years the theoretical-practical
projection of its negating essence and its primordial chaos, breaking
definitively with a utopian conception of society, of history and of
«revolutionary change» excessively tied to the economistic notions of
the 19^(th) century and to the constellation of understandings,
methodologies, projects, organizations and practices of
anarcho-communism.
It was there that we stopped living obsessed in the conservative defense
of our past to move on to the transgressive conquest of our present,
abandoning the theoretical-ideological order of classical anarchism to
undertake the necessary reorientation of the anarchic war in the context
in which we have to act, conscious of the need to start from scratch
(abandoning the «lineage» and the ballast of tradition), emancipated
from the past and, alien to the resuscitating attempts that yearn to
repeat to exhaustion the outdated revolutions.
That was the original proposal of the Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire
(CCF) in Greece.[8] Resisting to be subsumed in the traditional molds,
they not only put an end to the inaction in our tents, but they destined
three bullets to anarcho-communism: they gave a coup de grace to all the
economistic verbiage, another to the populist exaltation and, the third,
to the acute organizationism with its assembly methods and its political
correctness. In this way, the possibility of building a renewed anarchic
paradigm was opening up, making it possible to fluidly and harmoniously
bring together new theoretical-practical developments that were
beginning to tone up their muscle and invite replication throughout the
length and breadth of the planet.
But, in the midst of this rupturist plot, the occasional recuperators
reappeared, wielding the UNITY of struggles and wielding a certain
utopian millenarianism that -product of a bad digestion of Furth’s
approaches[9] and the anachronistic reading of the theories of Joachim
de Fiore and/or, the apocalyptic disquisitions of the preacher Thomas
Müntzer,[10] bet (and bet) on the fusion of myth and utopia, at this
stage of the game.
In this recuperative warp, the unitary grammar resumed its strength and
we returned to calling communists «comrades» and, once again, we gave
room to those outdated discourses that still observe the world from the
bow of the battleship Potemkin and incite to repetition, only now
orthodoxy and dogma are promoted in the name of the «new». In such a
way, the rupturist imprint that animated «the creative nothingness» and
those affinity groups (minimal and ephemeral) has been abandoned and
those anarcho-nihilist individualities (furtive and fleeting), were
extinguished or were subsumed in an alien grammar that imposes urban
guerrilla strategies and proposes pompous Revolutionary Fronts, with
certain Stalinist reminiscence.[11] This regrettable regression to the
narrowing of the world, to the narrowing of the «new», to the «new», to
the «new».
This lamentable regression has narrowed the diameter of our arteries in
the field of anarchic reflection, which prevents us from confronting the
very vastness of our praxis. It is ostensible that, once again, there is
no clarity whatsoever in grammar and, therefore, «ideological» exchanges
are postponed or, failing that, replaced by disqualification, suspicion
and aggravation, in accordance with the old manual of the good
Bolshevik.
That is why a reflective debate within the anarchic insurrectional
informalism is urgently needed. It is urgent to promote a minimum
substratum that reaffirms our distinctive and non-transferable
specificity; that breaks definitively with foreign grammars and; that
helps us to undertake a journey of anarchist confirmation, reorienting
the steps of our war. Within the framework of this itinerary, we have to
ask ourselves new generative questions but, above all, we will try to
give ourselves new answers that answer — from praxis — the needs of
contemporary anarchism.
Today, it is not only worrying but obscene to find in «anarchist» stores
calls demanding the release from prison of the beloved warrior Gabriel
Pombo Da Silva and that of the Stalinist Abdullah Öcalan. With identical
shamelessness, here in North America, the release of religious
fundamentalist leaders, spies and furious nationalists, to the detriment
of our prisoners, is demanded in «anarchist» portals. Or, from Chile,
they sell us the motorcycle – as the comrades of the web Anarquía
Info[12] inform us – with a list of prisoners that all these years we
have taken for «related» and, in reality, among those listed only the
comrades Mónica Caballero, Francisco Solar and Joaquín García proudly
assume themselves to be liberationists; the others camouflage themselves
with generic costumes («subversives», «rebels» and
«anti-authoritarians»), but they have never broken with the
Marxian-Leninist principles of the paramilitary organizations in which
they militated.
Of course, every time we make these points and such distortions are
criticized, there is no lack of disciplining sermons. We are always
labeled as «purists» and «sectarians» and, immediately, a flaming finger
is pointed at us. Negro Fiorito used to say — and he was right — that
every time we are accused of being «purists» or «sectarians» it is
because we are reaffirming in words and deeds our anarchic essence, our
demand for absolute freedom and the claim for a space where the
individual can choose what determines his will. He also affirmed
-without the least fear of words-, that we are really «sectarian»,
«purists», «intransigent» and even «totalitarian», because Anarchy
sustains in totalitarian principles (the totality of the attributes and
parts of something) its reason for being: the absolute rejection and
negation of the State and of any authority (from the most evident to the
most tenuous). And this, he declared in the sixties, seventies and
eighties of the last century, in the context of what we have called
«transitional anarchism»; that is to say, in those years of theoretical
confusion and regression of anarchist praxis, fertile in
social-democratic and/or Guevarist ravings, where some alleged
«anarchists» (in reality, liberals saturated with steroids), kissed the
dogma of the «class struggle» embracing Guevarist foquism as a «luminous
path» to libertarian Communism and, others, influenced by Arendt,
assumed themselves to be «anti-totalitarians».
Today, we must guard against the risks of repetition. It is unacceptable
to go back to ignominy. That is why the urgent need to point out a
minimum and essential substratum, which enhances our grammar and
promotes the widening of Black Anarchy in these days; an objective, a
desire or, perhaps, an essential yearning that, at some imprecise but
preferably near moment, we would like to share with all those anarchic
individualities that show an undeniable theoretical-practical proximity
that makes them road companions of an international conspiracy that
bases its cause on Nothing. If this were not so, we would no longer have
today, nor will we have tomorrow, anything of what we once were. Nothing
of what is authentically substantial and defining that constitutes us as
anarchists: the radical confrontation to all Authority and to each and
every one of the forms and strategies of Power (including the
instituting movements).
[1] In order to support this contribution, I will use contemporary Latin
America as a reference, even though the issues I intend to explore also
currently affect several regions of the world. However, I will not delve
into the particularities of the current situation of Latin American
territories recently «shaken» by social mobilization; instead, I will
address some of its characteristics from the perspective of the defining
components of the political grammars that dominate social movementism
and impose on it (invariably) an informally instituting stamp, oriented
towards the seizure of power.
[2] Such are the tricks implemented by the Collective Action and Social
Protest Group of the Gino Germani Research Institute at the University
of Buenos Aires, led by Germán Pérez and Ana Natalucci, at the service
of Kirchnerist neo-Peronism. For further information, please consult the
book Vamos las bandas. Organizaciones y militancia kirchnerista, Nueva
Trilce, Buenos Aires, 2012, co-edited by Germán Pérez and Ana Natalucci.
[3] Santos, B. De Souza, De la mano de Alicia. Lo social y lo político
en la posmodernidad, Ediciones Uniandes, Bogotá, 2006.
[4] The use of the notion of «grammars» evidently points to the work of
the linguist and mathematician Ludwing Wittgenstein in the philosophy of
language, while the concept of «grammars of mobilization» has been
developed by the sociologist Danny Trom, based on the contributions of
the «pragmatics of action» of Charles Wrigh Mills and its application to
the study of the domain of mobilization. The Millsian theory, inspired
by American pragmatist philosophers, «places motivation at the center of
the articulation between the present of the action and the situation».
Vid, Trom, Danny, Grammaire de la mobilisation et vocabulaires de motifs
(Grammar of mobilization and vocabularies of motives). Available at:
(Accessed 1/7/2021).
[5] In the Latin American context, it is worth mentioning Chile,
Colombia and Peru, to cite three examples of «transforming»
institutional impulse, and Kirchnerism, Evismo and Obradorism, as
examples of «ratification» in Argentina, Bolivia and Mexico,
respectively.
[6] Undoubtedly, the «mode of production» continues to be confused with
the «form of management». Capitalism is a mode of production and this
does not change depending on who manages it. That this mode of
production is managed (co-managed or self-managed) by capitalists,
technocrats, bureaucrats, military, trade unionists or cooperativists,
is completely unimportant: it does not interrupt the movement of the law
of value.
[7] Here I want to state for the record that I consider conceptually
imperfect and little defining all these «classificatory categories»,
reason why I have called them «generic labels», since they are assumed
both by National Socialism and Red Fascism, indistinctly.
[8] And that of their counterparts in Mexico and in the Chilean region.
[9] Vid, Furth, René, Formas y tendencias del anarquismo, Campo Abierto
Editores, Madrid, May 1977.
[10] See Cohn, Norman, In Pursuit of the Millennium. Revolucionarios
milenaristas y anarquistas místicos de la Edad Media, Pepitas de
calabaza Ed, Logroño, 2015.
[11] As a sign of this Stalinist offensive, the growth of the «Frente
Obrero», as reported by comrades in the Spanish state, is worrying. We
would not be surprised if under this call for worker-popular unity,
sectors of so-called «anti-fascism» and even of «revolutionary
syndicalism» come together. Vid., Stalinist Front, in
[12] Available at:
(Consulted 1/7/2021). I also recommend reading the text entitled ¡Con la
Anarquía, más allá de los límites! in the same portal and on the same
subject; available at:
1/7/2021).