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Title: The Insurrectional Project Author: Alfredo M. Bonanno Date: 1998 Language: en Topics: history, insurrectionist, Italy, organization, technology Source: Retrieved on April 8, 2009 from http://anti-politics.net/distro/download/insurr-project-read.pdf Notes: Elephant Editions, London, 2000, KKA publications, 2001, Quiver Distro, 2006. Translated from Italian by Jean Weir in collaboration with John Moore and Leigh Stracross
If we refuse to let our lives be organised by others we must have the
capacity to organise ourselves, that is, we must be able to ‘put
together the elements necessary to act as a coherent functioning whole’.
For anarchists, individuals who ardently desire the elimination of every
trace of tyranny and domestication, this has been experimented in a
myriad of forms according to prevailing social and economic conditions,
and marked by each one’s particular concept of wholeness. If this could
once be interpreted — by some — to mean a big organisation to oppose big
industry, today social disintegration and uncertainty have gone further
than any critique in relegating such undertakings to the pages of
history. We are left with the exquisite dilemma: if my freedom depends
on the freedom of all, does not the freedom of all depend on my acting
to free myself? And if all the exploited are not acting to free
themselves — as a tangible composite whole — how can I function, i.e.
organise myself, to destroy the reality that oppresses me without delay?
In other words, how can I act as a whole that seeks to expand and
enhance itself to infinity? Having refused the sop of participation,
voluntary work and progressive change with which the democratic ideology
seeks to satiate its bloated subjects, I am left with myself and my
unmediated strength. I seek my accomplices: two or three, hundreds or
hundreds of thousands, to upset and attack the present social order
right now — in the tiny act that gives immediate joy, indicating that
sabotage is possible for everyone; or in great moments of mass
destruction where creativity and anger combine in unpredictable
collusion. I am therefore faced with the problem of creating a project
whose immediate aim is destruction, which in turn creates space for the
new.
What holds things together and puts my actions in context cannot
therefore be a fixed formal organisation, but the development of the
capacity to organise myself, alone and with others, where numbers are
not an aim, but are always potentially present. In other words, I must
create an insurrectional project which already contains all the elements
of a revolutionary perspective: the decision to act now; analysis of the
present time taking account of the profound transformations capital is
undergoing globally and which have had an effect on the whole concept of
struggle; choice of objectives, means, ideas, desires; the means of
making these known to others in my search for affinity; the creation of
occasions for confrontation and debate, and much more besides.
Projectuality becomes force in movement, a propelling element within the
whole insurrectional flux.
The following texts come to us from a series of meetings that took place
in Greece some years ago. A sub-heading of one of the sections has since
reached notoriety after being chosen by the Italian carabinieri in 1996
to name the phantom armed organisation they subsequently accused dozens
of anarchists of belonging to. This should not divert us from our
understanding of the text, which could be seen as a starting point, an
invitation to consider and experiment in the insurrectional adventure.
Jean Weir
In January 1993 I was invited to Greece along with another comrade to
hold a number of talks at the Athens Polytechnic and the Law Faculty of
Salonika.
The texts published here are: an outline of the talks I intended to
give, a transcription of the tapes of the Salonika conference and a
transcription of an interview with the Athens daily Eleftherotipia. As
the first of these texts was intended to be a guide to the conferences,
I worked it out in detail along with the Greek comrades in time for it
to be translated and handed out to those present. This was necessary due
to the difficulties of on the spot interpretation.
I published the texts in May 1993 in number 72 of Anarchismo, with the
title ‘Recent Developments in Capitalism’.
The three pieces have a homogeneity that still makes them worth
publishing together, as they all concern capitalist restructuring and
the forms of insurrectionalist struggle that anarchists are proposing
against it.
A curious thing happened. The penultimate section of the first piece
published here is still entitled ‘Revolutionary anarchist
insurrectionalist organisation’. The origin of this now infamous heading
is rather strange and deserves comment. In fact I had originally
entitled the subsection ‘Informal anarchist insurrectionalist
organisation’, but we came up against difficulties when trying to
translate the term ‘informal’. It was impossible to solve them before my
arrival in Greece, so the comrades suggested replacing the term
‘informal’ with the more generic one, ‘revolutionary’.
I forgot to restore the word ‘informal’ when I published the text in
Italy, although it is nearer to what I am talking about in that
particular section.
I do not feel I can make such a correction now given all the nonsense
that the specialists of the Attorney General’s office in the courts of
Rome, led by Public Prosecutor Marini, have come out with.
I think it might be useful to give a brief description of the way the
minds of the Italian judiciary and Carabinieri have laboured on this
text.
On September 17, 1997, dozens of anarchists were arrested in Italy on
charges of kidnapping, robbery, murder, possession of arms, etc.,
initiating what came to be known as the ‘Marini Frame-up’. These
separate charges were transformed into one combined charge, i.e. that of
belonging to a clandestine armed organisation entitled the ORAI. The
name had been taken from the paragraph mentioned above: Revolutionary
anarchist insurrectionalist organisation.
This trial is still going on, and could drag on for years to come given
the various legal stages which make up the process. We were freed from
prison fourteen months after being arrested thanks to a simple
procedural error: the Attorney’s Office genius in Rome had been so busy
trying to justify a phantom ‘armed gang’ that they forgot to follow
their own rules. The result is that although still facing charges that
carry life imprisonment those who, like myself, did not have sentences
pending are now all at liberty.
As the enthralled reader will discover, the following texts contain no
theory relative to a specific armed organisation, but are an examination
of the insurrectionalist method of organising. This is based on affinity
groups composed of anarchists, the elaboration of a common revolutionary
project, their linking together in an informal organisation, the
constitution of base nuclei in a situation of mass struggle and,
finally, the way these structures could be linked together.
I realise that for the obtuse mentality of a Carabinieri educated to
seeing the enemy as a negative copy of himself and his organisation,
nothing under the sun could exist that is not equipped with an
organisation chart, leaders, strategies and objectives. And up to this
point I can even understand a tendentious reading of the text in
question. But what I cannot understand, and what no reader will surely
be able to either, is how such a text came to be given the task of
constituting the foundations of a clandestine armed organisation. This
is still simmering away in the mind of the Public Prosecutor, who will
stop at nothing to demonstrate our guilt.
Stop at nothing. Precisely, even to the point of denying all the
evidence to the contrary. And in fact, as appears from the trial
documents and even from the succinct phrasing of the arrest warrants,
they must have had a few doubts on the subject. However, these were
evidently cast aside due to the greater precedence of their need to
justify the unjustifiable: If it is true that Bonanno is theorising a
specific armed clandestine organisation (ORAI) in this piece (‘Recent
Developments in Capitalism’), then we, the Prosecution and Carabinieri,
declare that he cannot have gone to Greece to talk about it publicly in
a university auditorium. That would be illogical. And as the text in
question must mean what we, Prosecution and Carabinieri, say it means,
then we must conclude that Bonanno did not go to Greece, did not give
these conferences, and did not write this text as an outline and
memorandum for what he was about to say in public... A logical
conclusion! Only it ignores one thing: that in both Athens and Salonika
hundreds of people were present at these conferences. There are tape
recordings not just of the conferences but of the whole debate. Both the
conferences and the Salonika debate have been transcribed and presented
in a book published in Greece. And, finally, there are even photographs
published along with my interview (the third of the pieces published
here) on February 28 1993 in the Athens daily Eleftherotipia.
But why do the prosecution want to read something — the theorisation of
an inexistent armed band complete with name — into this text, even at
the risk of making themselves ridiculous? There is a simple answer:
because they would not otherwise be able to sentence dozens of
anarchists for conspiracy — a conspiracy that clearly does not exist. It
would then remain for them only to prove individual charges which would
have to be dealt with separately, according to the rules of the penal
code, etc.
The accusers know perfectly well that the second alternative would not
be easy for them. They are well aware that most of the charges are based
on the spurious accusations of a young girl bribed by them, that is why
they are so persistent in wanting to read something that is not there
into this text.
In fact, the concept of informal organisation proposed in the text in
question does not in any way resemble that of an armed clandestine
organisation. We are in two different worlds. The closed organisation
(necessarily so if we are talking of clandestinity), is an instrument
like any other, and in certain conditions of the class clash it might
even be useful as defensive or offensive means if one finds oneself in
dire straits. The economic and social structure would have to change
profoundly in order for it to become useful as a means today. Capital
would have to turn back on its steps to the conditions of production
that existed in the Eighties when there was a strong, centralised
working class and a fixed transmission belt of left wing unions and
parties — all things which clearly no longer exist. The closed
organisational model, which only indirectly wants the struggle to
generalise and does nothing in that direction other than make its
actions known through the media — and we know how that functions —
corresponds in many respects to the ideological conditions that sum up
the union and the party. If we refuse to be likened to political
parties, we must also refuse to be compared to organisations whose aim
is numerical growth, increasing the number of its actions and setting
itself up as the mainstay of the class struggle.
Of course, if anarchists were to get involved in constituting a
specific, closed organisation, they would do it in quite a different way
to the classic sclerotic one of the Marxist-Leninists. And there is no
doubt that, in its time, Azione Rivoluzionaria was an attempt in that
direction. But it soon moved away from its initial tragectory in the
direction of a generalisation of the struggle, and closed itself up in
the logic of recruiting and joining arms with the other combatant
organisations on the scene at the time. I am not saying that they did
not make any interesting proposals, especially in their early documents.
What I am saying is that, not only did these proposals not stand up to
criticism but by withdrawing into a position of defence they ended up
annihilating themselves by becoming more and more clandestine, that’s
all. The best comrades, it was said at the time, are those in prison.
One simply had to end up in prison to become a better comrade.
The problem is simple. When we work out an analysis we cannot put our
own personal positions aside. These inevitably come to permeate the
analysis without our meaning it to. And when the latter is written in
prison, it is obvious that that is where it has come from. Moreover,
when a comrade sees his immediate reality to be radically compromised he
conveys this in the analyses he is working on, as well as in the kind of
intervention and methods he proposes. By imprisoning himself in the
stifling viewpoint of a clandestine organisation his way of thinking
becomes clandestine even to himself, almost without realizing it.
It has been said that if one were to find oneself in a pre-revolutionary
phase (although no one could explain how we were to recognise this
phase), the only road possible would be that of the more or less closed
armed organisation. It was later seen that all attempts at ‘being
different’ simply ended up aborting themselves in the classic condition
of closure. It does not occur to anyone today that we are in a
pre-revolutionary phase, so if we were to accept the idea of a specific
armed organisation it would simply be a question of our own personal
decision, nothing more. A choice like any other. And I say that with no
expectations concerning the accusations in the trial in Rome.
At this point I could quote something I wrote years ago, in an article
published in Anarchismo — in 1979 to be exact — entitled ‘On Clandestine
Organisation’, which is also available in my book The Illogical
Revolution (pages 88–90), but it seems pointless to me. While many might
simply have forgotten these words from the past, I myself do not know
what to do with them. I do not even want to read them again, because
they belong to a period that is quite different to the present. As far
as I can remember, they referred to the fact that the critique of the
closed clandestine organisation is not simply an affirmation of
individualism. Criticism does not have a weakening effect, it
strengthens. But something strange occurs when those under criticism are
comrades who participate in, or support, a closed form of organisation,
even in theory. The critique is taken as a personal attack or something
aimed at weakening one’s conditions. And when you are faced with a
comrade with years of prison hanging over them, you run the risk of
being lynched. I do not think that the concept of the generalisation of
the struggle, including armed struggle, is the refusal of organisation.
Nor do I think that to criticise the closed clandestine organisation
means to ‘expose oneself to massacre’. Such generalisations do not
interest me.
The informal organisation of affinity groups and the consequent
development of base nuclei in specific mass struggles, are the
organisational forms I consider most useful today for the generalisation
of the struggle, armed or otherwise.
Alfredo M. Bonanno
Catania, 10 October 1998
From the late Seventies until the early Eighties, industry in the
leading capitalist countries was in crisis. The relationship between
plant and productivity had never been worse. Struggles led by the trades
unions, as well as those of the proletariat in general (especially in
their more violent manifestations under the leadership of the various
revolutionary working class structures), had led to a rise in labour
costs quite out of proportion to capital’s income. Incapable of
adjusting, lacking the strength to reduce labour and employment costs
drastically, it seemed as though the whole system was moving towards its
natural collapse.
But by the first half of the Eighties rapid change had set in, with
industrial restructuring taking an electronic direction. The primary and
secondary productive sectors (industry and agriculture) were in decline,
with consequent reductions in employment. The tertiary (services) sector
had expanded out of all proportion, absorbing some of the laid-off work
force, thus attenuating the social backlash that the capitalists had
feared more than anything else.
In short, the much-feared riots and revolutions did not take place.
There was no intolerable pressure from the reserve army of the
proletariat. Instead, everything quietly adapted to changes in the
structures of production.
Heavy industry replaced old plants with robotised ones capable of
reaching hitherto undreamed of levels of flexibility and low levels of
investment. Labour costs decreased without this leading to any fall in
demand because the services sector held well, assuring levels of income
that were sufficient to inflate the capitalist system as a whole. Most
of the sacked workers managed to find some way of getting by in the new
flexible and permissive capitalist world.
None of this would have been possible without the emergence of a new
flexible mentality at the work place: a reduction in the need for
professional qualifications and an increase in the demand for small,
auxiliary jobs. This coincided with a consolidation of the democratic
mentality.
The middle classes’ myths of careers and improvements in workers’ wages
disappeared for good. All this was possible thanks to articulated
interventions at every level:
suited to building a ‘malleable’ personality in young people. This was
to enable them to adapt to an uncertain future of the kind that would
have filled their parents with horror;
Authoritarianism gave way to democratisation, involving people in
fictitious electoral and referenda procedures;
professional qualifications has made producers tame and flexible.
This all took place according to the spirit of the times. Dreams of
philosophical and scientific certainty gave way to a ‘weak’ model, based
not on risk and courage but on adjustment in the short-term, on the
principle that nothing is certain but anything can be fixed.
As well as contributing to the disappearance of the old and in many
aspects out-of-date, authoritarianism, the democratic mentality also led
to a tendency to compromise at every level. This resulted in a moral
degradation where the dignity of the oppressed was exchanged for a
guaranteed but uncomfortable survival. Struggles receded and weakened.
post-industrial capitalism and the State
Undoubtedly one obstacle to be faced is precisely this amorphous,
flexible mentality outlined above. This cannot be compared to the
old-style reliance on social security; it is simply a desire to find a
niche in which to survive, work as little as possible, accept all the
rules of the system and disdain ideals and projects, dreams and utopias.
The laboratories of capital have done an exemplary job in this sense.
School, factory, culture and sport have united to produce individuals
who are domesticated in every respect, incapable of suffering or knowing
their enemies, unable to dream, desire, struggle or act to transform
reality.
Another obstacle, which is related to the first, consists of pushing
production to the margins of the post-industrial complex as a whole. The
dismembering of the class of producers is no longer a nebulous project,
it has become a reality. And the division into numerous small sectors
which often work against each other is increasing this marginalisation.
This is fast making the traditional structures of worker resistance,
such as workers’ parties and trades unions, obsolete. Recent years have
witnessed a progressive disappearance of the old-style trade-unionism,
including that which once aspired to revolution and self-management.
But, more importantly, we have witnessed the collapse of the communism
which claimed to have built a socialist State — realised through police
control and ideological repression.
It cannot be said that any organisational strategy capable of responding
to the new conditions of capitalist productive and social reality in
general has emerged.
Developments that might have arisen from proposals made by
insurrectionalist anarchists, especially those moving in the direction
of informal relations between individuals and groups based on affinity,
have not yet been fully taken on board. They have often received a tepid
welcome by comrades due to a certain, in some ways understandable,
reluctance to abandon the old ways of thinking and apply new methods of
organisation.
We will say something about this further on as it is central to the
struggle against the new structures of repression and total control
produced by Capital and the State.
The present technological revolution based on information technology,
lasers, the atom, subatomic particles, new materials such as optic
fibres which allow energy transportation and consumption at speeds and
over distances once unthinkable, genetic modification concerning not
only agriculture and animals but also man, etc., has not stopped at
changing the world. It has done more. It has produced conditions that
make it seem impossible to plan or make plans for the foreseeable
future, not only as far as those who intend to maintain the present
state of affairs are concerned, but also by those who intend to destroy
them.
The main reason for this is that the new technologies, which are now
interacting and becoming part of the context that has been developing
over at least the past 2,000 years, could produce unpredictable results.
And some of these results could be totally destructive, far beyond the
devastating effects of an atomic explosion.
Hence the need for a project aimed at the destruction of technology as a
whole in its first, essential phase, and which bases all its political
and social approaches on this imperative.
Profound changes are also taking place in the economic sector. These
changes are affecting the political situation in advanced capitalist
countries, with consequent effects on the military sector.
New frontiers in post-industrial capitalism are emerging from widespread
processes and re-arrangements that are continually in flux. The static
concept of production tied to heavy machinery in huge factories capable
of producing a multiplicity of consumer goods has been surpassed by the
ingenious idea of swift change and increasing competition in specialised
production with stylish, individual, personalised products. The
post-industrial product does not require skilled labour but is set up on
the production line directly, simply by reprogramming the robots to
produce it. This has meant incredible reduction in storage and
distribution costs and eliminated obsolescence and stockpiling of unsold
products.
This development created great new possibilities for capital around the
beginning of the Eighties, and by the end of the decade it had become
the norm. So the political situation had to change to correspond with
the new economic one.
This explains the considerable changes that took place at the end of the
eighties and the beginning of the nineties. There has been a move
towards careful selection of the managerial strata, which must be able
to see to the requirements of this new form of production. That explains
why advanced industrial countries such as the US and Great Britain went
through a period of increased authoritarianism in government, then moved
on to a more versatile, flexible form of political management
corresponding to the economic necessities of various countries which are
now all coordinated globally.
nationalism
Any advance from the countries of actual socialism beyond cautious,
reciprocal suspicion was unthinkable in the old capitalist reality. But
the birth of the new computerised, automated capitalism has not only
made advances possible but has forced these countries to change
radically, pushing them to an irreversible as it was indecent collapse.
Rigid authoritarian regimes based on ideological calembours such as
proletarian internationalism and the like are finding it difficult to
comply with the needs imposed by a production structure that is now
coordinated globally.
If they do not want to get stuck in a precarious, marginal situation,
the few remaining authoritarian regimes will have to resolutely
democratise their political management. Inflexibility forces the great
international partners of industrial development to stiffen and declare
war one way or the other.
It is in this sense that the role of the army has also changed
considerably. It has intensified internal repression, and at the same
time taken on the role of global policeman that was first developed by
the US. This will probably continue for a number of years until other
crises interrupt and require new yet equally precarious and dangerous
forms of equilibrium.
Accordingly, the resurgence of nationalism is bringing with it one
positive albeit limited element, and one that is extremely dangerous.
Its immediate and specific effect consists in the overturning and
dismemberment of the big States. Any movement that goes in this
direction is to be hailed as positive, even if on the surface it
presents itself as being a carrier of traditional, conservative values.
The other factor, the one that is extremely dangerous, is the risk of
wars spreading between the small States, declared and fought with
unprecedented ferocity and causing tremendous suffering in the name of
miserable principles and just as miserable alternatives.
Many of these wars will lead to a more efficient and structured form of
post-industrial capitalism. Many will be controlled and piloted by the
multinational giants themselves. But basically they represent a
transitory condition, a kind of epileptic fit, following which social
conditions could evolve in the direction of the elimination of any trace
of the old State organisms.
At the moment we can only guess how this might happen, starting off from
an examination of conditions today.
direction of anarchist communism
The end of the great trades union organisations’ function of resistance
and defence — corresponding with the collapse of the working class — has
allowed us to see another possibility for the organisation of the
struggle. This could start from the real capacity of the excluded, i.e.,
of the great mass of exploited, producers and non-producers, who already
find themselves beyond the area of guaranteed wages, or who will in the
near future.
The proposal of a kind of intervention based on affinity groups and
their coordination and aimed at creating the best conditions for mass
insurrection often comes up against a brick wall even amongst the
comrades who are interested in it. Many consider it to be out of date,
valid at the end of the last century but decidedly out of fashion today.
And that would be the case had the conditions of production, in
particular the structure of the factory, stayed as they were a hundred
and fifty years ago. The insurrectionalist project would undoubtedly be
inappropriate were such structures and their corresponding organisations
for trade union resistance still in existence. But these no longer
exist, and the mentality that went with them has also disappeared. This
mentality could be summed up by respect for one’s job, taking a pride in
one’s work, having a career. This, along with the sense of belonging to
a producer’s group in which to associate and resist and form trade union
links which could even become the means for addressing more problematic
forms of struggle such as sabotage, anti-fascist activity and so on, are
all things of the past.
All these conditions have disappeared for good. Everything has changed
radically. What we could call the factory mentality has ceased to exist.
The trade union has become a gymnasium for careerists and politicians.
Wage bargaining has become a filter for facilitating the adaptation of
the cost of labour to the new structures of capital. Disintegration is
extending rapidly beyond the factory to the whole social fabric,
breaking bonds of solidarity and all significant human relationships,
turning people into faceless strangers, automata immersed in the
unliveable confusion of the big cities or in the deathly silence of the
provinces. Real interests have been substituted by virtual images
created for the purpose of guaranteeing the minimum cohesion necessary
to hold the social mechanism as a whole together. Television, sport,
concerts, art and cultural activities constitute a network for those who
passively wait for things to happen, such as the next riot, the next
crisis, the next civil war, or whatever.
This is the situation we need to bear in mind when talking of
insurrection. We insurrectionalist and revolutionary anarchists are not
referring to something that is still to come about, but to something
that is already happening. We are not referring to a remote, far off
model, which, like dreamers, we are trying to bring back to life,
unaware of the massive transformations that are taking place at the
present moment. We live in our time. We are the children of the end of
the millennium, actors taking part in the radical transformation of the
society we see before us.
Not only do we consider insurrectionalist struggle to be possible but,
faced with the complete disintegration of traditional forms of
resistance, we think that it is the condition towards which we should be
moving if we do not want to end up accepting the terms imposed by the
enemy and becoming lobotomised slaves, insignificant pawns of the
mechanisms of the information technology that will be our master in the
near future.
Wider and wider strata of the excluded are moving away from consensus,
and consequently from accepting reality or having any hope of a better
future. Social strata who once considered themselves to be stable and
not at risk are now living in a precariousness they will never be able
to escape from by dedication to work and moderation in consumerism.
We believe that instead of federations and groups organised in the
traditional sense — part of the economic and social structures of a
reality that no longer exists — we should be forming affinity groups
based on the strength of mutual personal knowledge. These groups should
be capable of carrying out specific coordinated actions against the
enemy.
As far as the practical aspects are concerned, we imagine there would be
collaboration between groups and individuals to find the means,
documentation and everything else necessary for carrying out such
actions. As far as analyses are concerned, we are attempting to
circulate as many as possible in our publications and through meetings
and debates on specific questions. An insurrectionalist organisational
structure does not rotate around the central idea of the periodic
congress typical of the big syndicalist organisations or the official
movement federations. Its points of reference are supplied by the
entirety of the situations in the struggle, whether they be attacks on
the class enemy or moments of reflection and theoretical quest.
Affinity groups could then contribute to the forming of base nuclei. The
aim of these structures is to take the place of the old trades unions
resistance organisations — including those who insist on the
anarcho-syndicalist ideology — in the ambit of intermediate struggles.
The base nuclei’s field of action would be any situation where class
domination enacts a separation between included and excluded.
Base nuclei are nearly always formed as a consequence of the propulsive
actions of insurrectionalist anarchists, but they are not composed of
anarchists alone. At meetings, anarchists should undertake their task of
outlining class objectives to the utmost.
A number of base nuclei could form coordinating structures with the same
aim. These specific organisational structures are based on the
principles of permanent conflictuality, self-management and attack.
By permanent conflictuality we mean uninterrupted struggle against class
domination and those responsible for bringing it about.
By self-management we mean independence from all parties, trades unions
or patronage, as well as finding the means necessary for organising and
carrying out the struggle on the basis of spontaneous contributions
alone.
By attack we mean the refusal of any negotiation, mediation,
reconciliation or compromise with the enemy.
The field of action of affinity groups and base nuclei is that of mass
struggles.
These struggles are nearly always intermediary, which means they do not
have a direct, immediately destructive effect. They often propose simple
objectives, but have the aim of gaining more strength in order to better
develop the struggle towards wider objectives.
Nevertheless, the final aim of these intermediate struggles is always
attack. It is however obviously possible for individual comrades or
affinity groups to strike at individuals or organisations of Capital and
the State independently of any more complex relationship.
Sabotage has become the main weapon of the exploited in their struggle
in the scenario we see extending before our very eyes. Capitalism is
creating conditions of control and domination at levels never seen
before through information technology which could never be used for
anything other than maintaining power.
ultimately abolish the conditions of exploitation imposed by the
included.
struggles that are appearing spontaneously everywhere, turning them into
mass insurrections, that is to say, actual revolutions.
thanks to computer science restructuring, has become technologically
useful to no one but the managers of class domination.
structures, individuals and organisations of Capital and the State.
compromise with power in their belief that the revolutionary struggle is
impossible at the present time.
if the time is not ripe.
rather than wait until conditions make its transformation possible.
These are the reasons why we are anarchists, revolutionaries and
insurrectionalists.
Comrades, before starting this talk, a couple of words in order to get
to know each other better. In conferences a barrier is nearly always
created between whoever is talking and those who are listening. So, in
order to overcome this obstacle we must try to come to some agreement
because we are here to do something together, not simply to talk on the
one hand and listen on the other. And this common interest needs to be
clearer than ever given the questions about to be discussed this
evening. Often the complexity of the analyses and the difficulty of the
problems that are being tackled separate the person who is talking from
those who are listening, pushing many comrades into a passive dimension.
The same thing happens when we read a difficult book which only
interests us up to a point, a book with a title such as Anarchism and
Post-industrial Society, for example. I must confess that if I were to
see such a book in a shop window, I’m not sure I’d buy it.
That is why we need to come to some agreement. I think that behind the
facade of the problem under discussion, undoubtedly a complex one, the
fact that we are anarchists and revolutionary comrades means we should
be able to find some common ground. This should permit us to acquire
certain analytical instruments with which to better understand reality,
so be able to act upon it more effectively than before. As a
revolutionary anarchist I refuse to inhabit two separate worlds: one of
theory and another of practice. As an anarchist revolutionary, my theory
is my practice, and my practice my theory.
Such an introduction might not go down well, and it will certainly not
please those who support the old theories. But the world has changed. We
are faced with a new human condition today, a new and painful reality.
This can leave no room for intellectual closure or analytical
aristocracies. Action is no longer something that is separate from
theory, and this will continue to be the case. That is why it is
important to talk about the transformation of capitalism yet again.
Because the situation we see before us has already undergone rapid
restructuring.
When we find ourselves in a situation like this, we tend to let
ourselves be seduced by words. And we all know anarchists’ vocation for
words. Of course we are for action too. But tonight it is a question of
words alone, so we run the risk of getting drunk on them. Revolution,
insurrection, destruction, are all words. Sabotage — there, another
word. Over the past few days spent here among you I have heard various
questions asked. Sometimes they were asked in bad faith, as far as I
could tell. But translation from one language to another comes into it,
and I don’t want to be malevolent. I just want to say that it is
important not to deceive oneself that my analysis provides the solution
to the social problem. I do not believe any of the comrades I have
spoken to over the past few days have the solution either. Nor does the
anarcho-syndicalist comrade with his analyses based on the centrality of
the working class, or the other comrades who as far as I can understand
do not seem to agree with him and are proposing an intervention of an
insurrectionalist nature. No, none of these hypotheses can claim to
possess the truth. If anarchism teaches anything it teaches us to be
wary of anyone who claims to hold the truth. Anyone who does so, even if
they call themselves an anarchist, is always a priest as far as I am
concerned. Any discourse must simply aim to formulate a critique of the
existent, and if we sometimes get carried away with words, it is the
desire to act that gets the better of us. Let us stop here and start
thinking again. The destruction of the existent that oppresses us will
be a long road. Our analyses are no more than a small contribution so
that we can continue our destructive revolutionary activity together in
ways that make any small talk simply a waste of time.
So, what can we do? Anarchists have been asking themselves this for a
long time: how can we come into contact with the masses? to use a term
which often comes up in this kind of discussion, and which I have also
heard on various occasions over the past few days. Now, this problem has
been faced in two different ways. In the past, throughout the history of
anarchism, it has been faced by using the concept of propaganda, that
is, by explaining who we are to the masses. This, as we can easily see,
is the method used by political parties the world over. Such a method,
the use of traditional anarchist propaganda, is in difficulty today in
my opinion, just as the spreading of any other ideology is. It is not so
much that people don’t want to have anything to do with ideology any
longer as that capitalist restructuring is making it pointless. And I
must say here publicly that anarchists are having difficulty in
understanding this new reality, and that it is the subject of an ongoing
debate within the international anarchist movement. The end of ideology
is leading to a situation where traditional anarchist propaganda is
becoming pointless. As the effectiveness (or illusion, we do not know
which) of propaganda disappears, the road of direct contact with people
is opening up. This is a road of concrete struggles, struggles we have
already mentioned, everyday questions, but of course one can’t exceed
one’s limitations. Anarchists are a very small minority. It is not by
making a lot of noise, or by using advertising techniques that they will
be able to make themselves heard by the people. So it is not a question
of choosing the most suitable means of communication — because this
would take us back to the problem of propaganda, and therefore ideology,
again — but rather of choosing the most suitable means of struggle. Many
anarchists believe this to be direct attack, obviously within the limits
of their possibilities, without imagining themselves to be anyone’s fly
coachman.
I ask you to reflect for a moment on the state of Capitalism at the
beginning of the Eighties. Capitalism was in difficulty. It was facing
increased labour expenditure, a restructuring of fixed plants at
astronomically high costs, a rigid market, and the possibility of social
struggles developing in response to this. And then, think about the
conditions six or seven years later. How quickly Capitalism changed. It
overcame all its difficulties in a way that could never have been
predicted, achieving an unprecedented programme of economic and
imperialist management of the world. Perhaps it does not seem so at the
moment, but this programme aimed at closing the circle of power is well
underway. What has happened? How was a situation so wrought with
difficulties able to pick up so quickly and radically?
We all know what happened, it is not the technical side of it that
surprises us. Basically, a new technology has been inserted into the
productive process. Labour costs have been reduced, productive
programmes replaced, new forces used in production: we know all this.
That is not the aspect of capitalist restructuring that surprises us.
No, what astounds us is the latter’s ingenious use of the working class.
Because this has always formed the main difficulty for capitalism.
Capitalist geniality has succeeded in attacking and dismantling the
working class, spreading them all over the country, impoverishing,
demoralising and nullifying them. Of course it was afraid to do this at
first. Capital was always afraid to venture along that road, because
reductions in the price of labour have always marked the outbreak of
social struggles. But, as its academic representatives had been
insisting for some time, the danger no longer exists, or at least it is
disappearing. It is now even possible to lay people off, so long as you
do it by changing production sectors, so long as others are being
prepared to develop an open mentality and are beginning to discuss
things. And all the social forces: parties, unions, social workers, the
forces of repression, all levels of school, culture, the world of the
spectacle, the media, have been rallied to tackle Capitalism’s new task.
This constitutes a worldwide crusade such as has never been seen before,
aimed at modelling the new man, the new worker.
What is the main characteristic of this new man? He is not violent,
because he is democratic. He discusses things with others, is open to
other people’s opinions, seeks to associate with others, joins unions,
goes on strike (symbolic ones, of course). But what has happened to him?
He has lost his identity. He does not know who he really is any longer.
He has lost his identity as one of the exploited. Not because
exploitation has disappeared, but because he has been presented with a
new image of things in which he is made to feel he is a participant.
Moreover, he feels a sense of responsibility. And in the name of this
social solidarity he is ready to make new sacrifices: adapt, change his
job, lose his skills, disqualify himself as a man and a worker. And that
is what Capitalism has systematically been asking of him over the past
ten years, because with the new capitalist restructuring there is no
need for qualifications, but simply for a mere aptitude for work,
flexibility and speed. The eye must be faster than the mind, decisions
limited and rapid: restricted choices, few buttons to be pressed,
maximum speed in execution. Think of the importance that video games
have in this project, to give but one example. So we see that worker
centrality has disappeared miserably. Capital is capable of separating
the included from the excluded, that is, of distinguishing those who are
involved in power from those who will be excluded forever. By ‘power’ we
mean not only State management, but also the possibility of gaining
access to better living conditions.
But what supports this divide? What guarantees the separation? This lies
in the different ways that needs are perceived. Because, if you think
about it for a moment, under the old-style form of exploitation,
exploited and exploiter both desired the same thing. Only the one had,
and the other did not. If the construction of this divide were to be
fully realised, there will be two different kinds of desire, a desire
for completely different things. The excluded will only desire what they
know, what is comprehensible to them and not what belongs to the
included whose desires and needs they will no longer be able to
comprehend because the cultural equipment necessary to do so will have
been taken from them for ever.
This is what Capitalism is building: an automaton in flesh and bone,
constructed in the laboratories of power. Today’s world, based on
information technology, knows perfectly well that it will never be able
to take the machine to the level of man, because no machine will ever be
able to do what a man can. So they are lowering man to the level of the
machine. They are reducing his capacity to understand, gradually
levelling his cultural heritage to the absolute minimum, and creating
uniform desires in him.
So when did the technological process we are talking about begin? Did it
begin with cybernetics as has been suggested? Anyone who has any
experience of such things knows that if poor Norbert Wiener has any
responsibility at all, it lies in the fact that he started to play
around with electronic tortoises. In actual fact, modern technology was
born a hundred years ago when an innocent English mathematician started
toying with arithmetic and developed binary calculus. Now, following on
from that it is possible to identify the various steps in modern
technology. But there is one precise moment in which a qualitative leap
takes place: when electronics came to be used as the basis upon which
the new technology (and consequently the technology for perfecting
electronics) was built. And it is impossible to predict how things will
evolve, because no one can foresee what the consequences of this entry
into a new technological phase will be. We must understand that it is
not possible to think in terms of cause and effect. For example, it is
naive to say that the great powers have the atomic potential to blow up
the world, even though this is so. This idea, so terrifying and
apocalyptic, belongs to the old concept of technology based on the
hypothesis of cause and effect: the bombs explode, the world is
destroyed. The problem we are talking about here opens up the prospect
of a far more dangerous situation because it is no longer a matter of
speculation but something that already exists and is developing further.
And this development is not based on the principle of cause and effect
but on the weaving of unpredictable relations. Just one simple
technological discovery, such as a new substance for energy conservation
for example, could lead to a series of destructive technological
relations which no one in all conscience, no scientist, would be able to
predict. It might cause a series of destructive relations which would
not only affect the new technologies, but also the old ones, putting the
whole world in chaos. This is what is different, and it has nothing to
do with cybernetics, which is only the distant relative of the present
nightmare.
In the light of all this we have been asking ourselves for a long time
now: how can we attack the enemy if we do not know it in depth? But, if
you think about it, the answer is not all that difficult. We very much
enjoy attacking the police, for example, but no one becomes a policeman
in order to do so. One informs oneself: how do the police operate? What
kind of truncheons do they use? We put together the small amount of
knowledge required for us to roughly understand how the police work. In
other words, if we decide to attack the police, we simply limit
ourselves to obtaining a certain amount of knowledge about them. In the
same way, it is not necessary to become engineers in order to attack the
new technology, we can simply acquire some basic knowledge, a few
practical indications that make it possible for us to attack it. And
from this consideration another, far more important one, emerges: that
the new technology is not abstract, it is something concrete. For
instance, the international communication system is a concrete fact. In
order to build abstract images in our heads it needs to spread itself
throughout the country. This is the way the new materials are being
used, let us say in the construction of cables for data transmission.
And it is here that it is important to know technology, not how it works
in the productive aspect, but how it is spread throughout the country.
That is to say, where the directing centres (which are multiple) are to
be found and where the communication channels are. These, comrades, are
not abstract ideas but physical things, objects that occupy space and
guarantee control. It is quite simple to intervene with sabotage in this
instance. What is difficult is finding out where the cables are.
We have seen the problem of finding the documentation and research
required to attack: at some point this becomes indispensable. At some
point, knowledge of technology becomes essential. In our opinion this
will be the greatest problem that revolutionaries will have to face over
the next few years.
I do not know if any use will be made of the computer in the society of
the future, the self-managed society many comrades refer to, just as it
is impossible to know whether any use will be made of a considerable
number of the new technologies. In fact, it is impossible to know
anything about what will happen in this hypothetical society of the
future. The only thing I can know, up to a point, concerns the present,
and the effects of the use of the new technologies. But we have already
gone into this, so there is no point in repeating ourselves. The task of
anarchists is to attack, but not on behalf of their own organisational
interests or quantitative growth. Anarchists have no social or
organisational identity to defend. Their structures are always of an
informal character so their attack, when it takes place, is not to
defend themselves (or worse still to propagandise themselves), but to
destroy an enemy who is striking everyone. And it is in this decision to
attack that theory and practice weld together.
An historically unprecedented kind of capitalism is appearing on the
horizon. When we hear of neo-liberalism, this is in fact what is meant.
When we hear talk of global dominion, this is the project that is being
referred to, not the old concept of power, not the old imperialism. It
was in the face of this project and its immense capacity to dominate
that real socialism collapsed. No such thing would ever have happened in
the context of the old capitalism. There is no longer any need for the
world to be divided into two opposing blocs. The new capitalist
imperialism is of an administrative kind. Its project is to manage the
world for a small nucleus of included, at the cost of the great mass of
excluded. And with these projects in mind, all possible means are
already being used — the new ones we have mentioned, along with the old
ones, as old as the world, such as war, repression, barbarity, according
to the situation. In this way, in the former Yugoslavia for example, a
ferocious war is being waged aimed at reducing a people’s capacities as
far as possible. Then there will be an intervention in this situation of
absolute destruction in the form of a little humanitarian aid which will
seem like an enormous amount of help in such conditions of absolute and
total misery.
Think of what the state of countries like the former Yugoslavia would be
like without the war. A great powder-keg at the gates of western Europe,
on our borders, alongside the European Community. A powder-keg ready to
explode, social contradictions which no economic intervention would ever
be able to raise to the level of western consumerism. The only solution
was war, the oldest device in the world, and that has been applied.
American and world imperialism are intervening in Somalia and Iraq, but
there is little doubt that they will intervene in the former Yugoslavia
because the probability of rebellion in this area must be reduced to
zero. So, old means are being used along with new ones, according to the
situation, according to the economic and social context involved.
And one of the oldest weapons in the great arsenal of horrors is racism.
On the question of racism and all the misdeeds related to it
(neo-nazism, fascism, etc.), let’s look for a moment at the
differentiated development of capitalist restructuring. In order to
understand the problem it is necessary to see how capitalist
restructuring cannot solve all its problems just by waving a magic wand.
It is faced with many different situations all over the world, each with
various levels of social tension. Now, these situations of social
tension are making what is lurking in the depths of each one of us rise
to the surface, things that we have always put aside, exorcised.
Essential factors such as racism, nationalism, the fear of the
different, the new, Aids, the homosexual, are all latent impulses in us.
Our cultural superstructure, our revolutionary consciousness, when it
puts on its Sunday clothes, obliterates them, hides them all. Then, when
we take off our Sunday best, all these things start to reappear. The
beast of racism is always present, and Capitalism is always ready to use
it. In situations such as that which exists in Germany where social
tensions have developed rapidly over the past few years, this phenomenon
is in constant development. Capital controls racism and uses certain
aspects of it, but it is also afraid of it in that the overall
management of world power is of a democratic, tolerant and possibilist
nature. From the point of view of utilisation, anything (e.g., ideology,
fear) can exist — it is all part of capital’s project. We cannot say
with certainty that post-industrial capitalism is against racism. We can
see a few of its main characteristics, such as its democratic nature,
then suddenly discover that in the context of one specific country the
same technologically advanced capitalism is using methods that were used
a hundred years ago: racism, persecution of Jews, nationalism, attacks
on cemeteries, the most hateful and abominable things man can devise.
Capital is manifold, its ideology always Machiavellian: it uses both the
strength of the lion and the cunning of the fox.
But the main instrument of capitalism the world over are the new
technologies. We must think about this a little, comrades, in order to
dispel so much confusion. And in doing so we must also consider the
possible use of such technology on our part, in changed social
conditions, in a post-revolutionary situation. We have already seen how
there has been a great qualitative leap from the old technologies to the
new — by new technologies we mean those based on computers, lasers, the
atom, subatomic particles, new materials, human, animal and vegetable
genetic manipulation. These technologies are quite different from, and
have little to do with, the old ones. The latter limited themselves to
transforming material, to modifying reality. On the contrary, the new
technologies have penetrated reality. They do not simply transform it,
they create it, instigating not just molecular changes, possible
molecular transformation, but above all creating a mental
transformation. Think of the use that is normally made of television.
This instrument of communication has got inside us, into our brains. It
is modifying our very capacity to see, to understand reality. It is
modifying relations in time and space. It is modifying the possibility
to step out of ourselves and change reality. In fact, the vast majority
of anarchists do not think it possible to make use of this assemblage of
modern technologies.
I know that there is an ongoing debate about this. However, this debate
is based on a misunderstanding. That is, it is trying to treat two
things that are radically different in the same way. The old
revolutionary dream, let us say of Spanish anarcho-syndicalism, was that
of attacking and defeating power so that the working class could take
over the instruments of production and use them in the future society in
a way that was more just and free. Now it would be impossible to make a
fairer and more free use of these new technologies, because they do not
stand passively before us like the old technologies of yesterday, but
are dynamic. They move, penetrate deep inside us, have already
penetrated us. If we do not hurry to attack, we will no longer be able
to understand what we need in order to do so, and rather than us taking
the technologies over, it will be the technologies that take us over. It
will not be a case of social revolution but of the technological
revolution of capital. This is why a revolutionary use of these new
technologies is impossible. The misconception is similar to the old one
concerning the possible revolutionary use of war, which many well-known
anarchists fell prey to when the first world war broke out. A
revolutionary use of war is impossible, because war is always an
instrument of death. A revolutionary use of the new technologies is
impossible, because the new technologies will always be instruments of
death. So all that is left to do is to destroy them — to attack, now,
not in the future, not when the project has been completed, not when
those who are deceiving themselves stop doing so, but sabotage now,
attack now. This is the conclusion we have reached. It is at the moment
of the destructive attack that one clarifies what we said to begin with.
It is at this point that theory conjoins with practice, and the analysis
of post-industrial capitalism becomes an instrument with which to attack
capitalism. It becomes an instrument for insurrectionalist and
revolutionary anarchism in order to direct one’s attention to what — the
men and the things — makes this project of restructuring of Capitalism
possible, and whose responsibilities are clear.
Today as never before, striking at the root of inequality means
attacking that which makes the unequal distribution of knowledge
possible directly. And that is because, for the first time, reality
itself is knowledge, for the first time Capitalism is knowledge. Whereas
the centres where knowledge was elaborated, the universities, for
example, were once cloistered places to be consulted at specific times
of need, today they are at the centre of capitalist restructuring, the
centre of repressive restructuring. So, a distribution of knowledge is
possible. I insist on saying that this is an urgent problem, because it
is possible to grasp any difference when one sees it. But when a net
separation between two different kinds of knowledge which have no
communication between them occurs — the knowledge of the included and
that of the excluded — it will be too late. Think of the project of
lowering the quality of schooling. Think how mass schooling, once an
instrument for gaining knowledge, has been transformed over the past
twenty years into an instrument of disqualification. The level of
knowledge has been lowered, whereas a restricted minority of privileged
continue to acquire other knowledge, in specialised masters degrees
organised by Capital.
This, in my opinion, demonstrates the need and urgency for attack yet
again. Attack, yes. But not blind attack. Not desperate, illogical
attack. Projectual, revolutionary attack, with eyes wide open in order
to understand and to act. For example, the situations where capital
exists, and is being realised in time and space, are not all the same.
There are some contexts in which insurrection is more advanced than
others, yet there is still a great possibility for mass struggles to
take place internationally. It is still possible to intervene in
intermediate struggles, that is, in struggles that are circumscribed,
even locally, with precise objectives that are born from some specific
problem. These should not be considered to be of secondary importance.
Such kinds of struggle also disturb Capitalism’s universal project, and
our intervention in them could be considered an element of resistance,
putting a brake on the fragmentation of the class structure. I know that
many comrades here this evening have experienced such things, and have
participated directly in specific struggles.
So, we need to invent new instruments. These instruments must be capable
of affecting the reality of the struggles without the mediation of trade
union or party leadership. They must propose clear, even though limited,
objectives, ones that are specific, not universal, so in themselves are
not revolutionary. We must point to specific objectives because people
need to feed their children. We cannot expect everyone to sacrifice
themselves in the name of universal anarchism. Limited objectives, then,
where our presence as anarchists has the precise task of urging people
to struggle directly in their own interests because it is only through
direct, autonomous struggle that these objectives can be reached. And
once the aim has been reached the nucleus withers and disappears. The
comrades then start again, under different conditions.
What comrades are we talking about? What anarchists are we talking
about? Many of us are anarchists, but how many of us are available for
real, concrete activity? How many of us here today stop short at the
threshold of the issue and say: we are present in the struggle, we
suggest our project, then the workers, the exploited, do what they like.
Our task is done. We have put our conscience at rest. Basically, what is
the task of the anarchist if it is not propaganda? As anarchists, we
have the solution to all social problems. So we present ourselves to the
people who suffer the consequences of the problem, suggest our solution,
and go home. No, this kind of anarchism is about to disappear out for
good. The last remaining mummies belong to history. Comrades must take
the responsibility for struggles upon themselves directly and personally
because the objective against which the exploited need to struggle in
certain situations, and against which they often do not, is a common one
because we are exploited just as they are. We are not privileged. We do
not live in two different worlds. There is no serious reason as to why
they (the so-called masses) should attack before we do. Nor do I see any
reason why we should only feel ourselves authorised to attack in their
presence. The ideal, certainly, is mass struggle. But in the face of the
project of capitalist restructuring anarchists should feel responsible
and decide to attack personally, directly, not wait for signs of mass
struggle. Because this might never happen. So this is where the
destructive act takes place. It is at this point that the circle closes.
What are we waiting for?
So, individual acts of destruction too. But here an important objection
has been raised: what does one gain by smashing a computer? Does that
perhaps solve the problem of technology? This question, an important
one, was presented to us when we worked out the hypothesis of social
sabotage. It was said: what result is obtained by destroying a pylon?
First of all, the question of sabotage is not aimed so much at the
terminal points of technology as at the communications network. So, we
are back to the problem of knowledge of the way technology is
distributed over the country, and, if you allow me to digress for a
moment, I want to point to a serious problem that arises here. I allow
myself to use the term ‘serious problem’ because a comparison has been
made between what a clandestine armed organisation thinks they are doing
by striking a specific person, and what, instead, an anarchist
insurrectionalist structure thinks it is doing by striking a
technological realisation, maintaining that, all said and done, there is
not much difference. There is a difference, and it is a very important
one. But it is not a question of the difference between people and
things. It is an even more important difference, because the aims of the
clandestine armed organisation contain the error of centrism. By
striking the person, the organisation believes it is striking the centre
of Capital. This kind of error is impossible in an anarchist
insurrectionalist organisation, because when it strikes a technological
realisation (or someone responsible for this realisation), it is fully
aware that it is not striking any centre of Capitalism.
During the first half of the Eighties, huge mass struggles took place
against nuclear power plants in Italy. One of the most important of
these was the struggle against the missile base in Comiso. In this
context we realised ‘base nuclei’. For three years we struggled
alongside the local people. This was a mass struggle, which for various
reasons did not succeed in preventing the construction of the base. But
that is not the only kind of struggle we consider, it is just one of the
possible ones we participate in as insurrectionalist anarchists, one of
the many intermediary struggles possible.
In another direction, in the years that followed, over four hundred
attacks took place against structures connected to the electric power
supply in Italy. Sabotage against coal-fired electric power stations,
the destruction of high-voltage pylons, some of them huge ones that
supplied a whole region. Some of these struggles transformed themselves
into mass struggles; there was mass intervention in some of the projects
of sabotage, in others there was not. On a dark night in the
countryside, anonymous comrades would blow up a pylon. These attacks
were spread over the whole country, and in my opinion possessed two
essential characteristics: they constituted an easily realisable attack
against Capital, in that they did not use highly destructive technology
and, secondly, they are easily copied. Anyone can take a walk in the
night. And then, it is also healthy. So anarchists have not passively
waited for the masses to awaken, they have considered doing something
themselves. In addition to the four hundred attacks we know about, one
could guess that at least another four hundred could have taken place as
the State conceals these actions because it is afraid of them. It would
be impossible to control a capillary-style spreading of sabotage all
over the country. No army in the world is capable of controlling such
activity. As far as I know, not one comrade has been arrested in
connection with the known four hundred attacks.
I would like to wind up here because I think I have been talking long
enough. Our insurrectionalist choice is anarchist. As well as being let
us say a characterological choice, a choice of the heart, it is also a
choice of reason, a result of analytical reflection. What we know about
global capitalist restructuring today tells us that there is no other
way open to anarchists but that of immediate, destructive intervention.
That is why we are insurrectionalists and are against all ideology and
chatter. That is why we are against any ideology of anarchism, and all
chatter about anarchism. The time for pub talk is over. The enemy is
right outside this great hall, visible for all to see. It is simply a
question of deciding to attack it. I am certain that insurrectionalist
anarchist comrades will know how to choose the timing and the means for
doing so, because with the destruction of this enemy, comrades, it is
possible to realise anarchy.
What is your identity and that of anarchism?
Today, particularly following the collapse of actual socialism, wide
perspectives are opening up for revolutionary anarchism. This should be
intended both as an analytical instrument, a means for understanding
reality, and as an organisational point of reference for people carrying
out social struggles in everyday practice.
What is the position of the Italian anarchist movement in today’s
society?
The Italian situation is very different from the Greek, partly because
Italy has witnessed twenty years of authoritarian revolutionism, i.e.,
Marxist-Leninist armed groups. The failure of this authoritarian
strategy, the aim of which was the conquest of power, has led people to
think that all revolutionary struggle is doomed to failure. So
anarchists in Italy are faced with a very difficult task today, because
on the one hand this problem needs to be clarified, and on the other it
is necessary to explain to people what one means by revolutionary
struggle, which for anarchists is the destruction of power. And they
cannot limit themselves to explaining all this merely in words. It also
needs to be done by means of the concrete practice of social struggles,
something that is still to happen.
What image do Italian people have of anarchists?
When Italian society has an image of anarchism and anarchists — I say
when it has, because often they do not even know what anarchists are —
it is either an image that dates back about 100 years or one supplied by
the media. Media images often confuse anarchists, autonomists and other
marginal components of society such as the lumpen-proletariat in revolt,
even to the point of sometimes calling hooligans anarchists.
This happens in spite of the fact that the anarchist movement has a long
history in Italy?
It is also due to a certain incapacity on the part of anarchists
themselves. But it should be said that it is not easy to destroy an
opinion that television constructs in a day, in one single programme.
You must understand that the historical inheritance of the Italian
anarchist movement is hardly known, as it is confined to the anarchist
minority and academic study. The information that most people receive is
limited to the mass media. Due to such conditions, which are the same in
Greece, it is not possible to modify the situation from one day to the
next, a lot of work is required here.
Is a use of the media considered to be part of the insurrectional
project?
This is a very important question, and demonstrates the radical
difference between two revolutionary strategies. On the one hand the
authoritarian one, that of the old Marxists whose aim was to realise
spectacular actions — the case which caused the greatest stir being the
Moro kidnapping — using the media and, through this instrument of
sensationalism, make mass propaganda. According to insurrectionalist
anarchists this is definitely a losing strategy. Anarchists do not think
it is possible to use the media. A limited, subtle dialogue can only be
held at a theoretical level, as we are doing now. It cannot exist at a
practical level during social struggles, because then, more than at any
other time, the media merely carry out the role of supporting the enemy.
Insurrectionalist anarchists do not believe it is possible for
objective, neutral information to exist.
But are all people prey to the media? Could these means of information
not play an important role in making anarchists better known?
I don’t believe anything is absolute. In revolutionary activity choices
are made that naturally have both positive and negative aspects. When
they find themselves in social struggles, insurrectionalist anarchists
have chosen to refuse this means of communication. Of course that has
its price in terms of transmission of the image, but I think that there
are more important issues involved such as keeping the media away from
the social struggle, although that does not prevent them from carrying
out their job of mystification. But here it is a question of
revolutionary responsibility, and in Italy more than a few journalists
have been attacked personally as a result. So, there is nothing absolute
about making such judgements, only practical choices to be made.
It has been argued that Europe is presently moving through a cultural
Middle Ages. What is your opinion on this?
This is a complex question, which in order to answer requires at least a
couple of words of introduction of a cultural nature. The very concept
of a ‘cultural Middle Ages’ shows the limitations of certain
information. The Middle Ages is seen negatively, as the ‘dark ages’,
which was not the case. The crisis of ideology has also led to a crisis
in the idea of progress, upon which the Marxist analysis in particular
was based. It is sufficient to think of Lukacs and his theory that
reality is proceeding in a determinist and historicist way towards a
better future. In the past this ideological concept was also shared by
various anarchists, and it was in error. Reality is not moving in a
progressive direction, and the conditions of barbarity are always
present. There is not one thing in history that can guarantee otherwise.
We cannot look at any specific period and say: barbarity is over,
fascism is finished with for good. We live with fascism, we can see this
better thanks to the crisis in ideology that has opened our eyes a
little, but only a little. So, as far as this question is concerned I am
of the opinion that we find ourselves, not in the Middle Ages, because
the Middle Ages were not barbarian, but in a situation where barbarity
is currently possible. So, no, I don’t agree with the idea that we are
going through a historical period similar to the Middle Ages. We are
constantly living in a condition of possible barbarity, but also of
possible freedom. It is up to us to choose which road we want to take,
and this is the aim of revolutionary activity: understanding which road
is the road to freedom, and finding the means to take it.
Concerning the crisis in ideology and the position of Fukuyama re the
end of history, the end of ideas — have we reached the end of history or
do we have any ideas that are capable of giving us information? And if
so, what do we then mean by the concept “the end of history”?
That is a very articulate question. We need to determine what we mean by
history. Not by chance is there a relationship between neo-liberalism
and history, because the old liberalism was historicist, that is, it
supported the ideology of history. That kind of history is finished. No
matter what the philosophers say, the crisis in the idea of progress
concerned a single line proceeding forward through reality and time,
necessarily leads to a crisis in the ideology of history, not merely a
crisis of history. So, it is not just a matter of a crisis in ideas,
because the new liberalism is afraid of a future lack of social control
and is circulating the fear of ‘the end of history’ at the level of
public opinion. Their aim is to limit people through an ideology of
history which, like any ideology, is an instrument of control. So, we
have not reached any end historically at all. The fact that we are
reaching the end of the millennium just increases the confusion. A
neo-millenarianism is being put into circulation for irrational reasons.
This is a very dangerous social terrain where we can see a development
of all the religious integralisms, including the Christian version, in
the name of an abstract need to save man. So, it is not a question of
“the end of history”, but rather of the end of historicism which, like
any new ideology of world domination does not know what to do yet. It
realises that it does not yet have the ideally adapted theoretical
instruments necessary, whereas academia, i.e. the world — Japanese and
American — university has nothing better to do than produce amenities of
this kind.
Does history have a cyclical or a linear pattern?
This is also a difficult question. But are all your readers
philosophers? I do not know how much depth analysis could be useful,
however I will start by establishing that we cannot separate the idea of
history from the idea of progress. The idea of progress comes from the
revolutionary bourgeoisie who lent themselves to the conquest of power.
We need to understand that the idea of progress is an idea of power, of
the management of power. Now, the idea of progress requires a linear
conception of history, something that was expressed very well by Marx.
He thought that the revolutionary clash between the bourgeoisie and the
proletariat would necessarily end up with the victory of the
proletariat, because the latter were destined to realise history. In
this he applied the idea of his philosophical mentor, Hegel, who said
that the objective idea of the world would realise philosophy and would
render it useless, so people would no longer need to think. And we have
seen how the State did think in place of people in the countries of
actual socialism. And these apparently innocent philosophical ideas
still lurk amongst small university groups and are discussed by very
serious people, savants worried about people’s destiny. Then they come
out of the universities, move about in reality and contribute to
building the concentration camps, determining full-scale massacres,
historical tragedies of vast proportions, wars and genocide.
Now, having established this we can return to the problem of the linear
concept of history. What do anarchists put in its place? They suggest
inverting Marx’s sentiment, that the sleep of reason breeds monsters. On
the contrary, anarchists maintain that it is in fact reason that breeds
monsters. That is to say the reason of the philosophers, the
politicians, the programmers of power, dominion, and also of historical
ideology. So, as long as it is possible to build States and support
exploitation, war and social death, a concept of linear history will be
possible. When all that changes, or begins to change, we will finally
realise that there is no such thing as linear history but that,
according to the intuition of your ancient Greek philosophers (who
remain unchallenged today), reality is of a circular movement wherein
the barbarity of the past can present itself at any time. In this
circular movement nothing is ever old or new, but rather everything is
always different — which does not mean that it is more, or less,
progressive. That is why it is necessary to begin again each time,
identify the enemy, the class enemy, the social enemy, power, and attack
it, always with new means. It is something of the work of Sisyphus, and
anarchists have this quality of Sisyphus, of always starting at the
beginning again, because, like him, they never give up. And with this
moral strength of theirs they are superior to the gods, just like
Sisyphus.
What do you think of the reappearance of nationalism?
There is not only a reappearance of nationalism, but a reappearance of
the most ferocious barbarity of the past. For instance, at least
according to what the newspapers report, twenty thousand women have been
raped in Bosnia. But not in the same way as with all the other armies in
the world, because rape is a normal practice of any army, but rather as
a deliberate means of fathering Serbians, i.e. as a kind of genetic
programming. Such an idea really goes back to the beginning of time and
confronts us with tragic considerations. For example, it could be that
we (including anarchists) made a mistake concerning man’s original
goodness and the notion that it was society that made him become bad. We
will probably all have to reconsider these concepts. We need to become
more intellectually acute, and not be amazed each time these events
re-occur in history, and stop placing our hopes in peoples’ goodness.
Nationalism rises up again because it exists in each one of us, because
racism is inside every one of us. The fear of the black man is inside
us, in those obscure regions that we are afraid to penetrate, where
there is the fear of the different, the foreigner, the Aids sufferer,
the homosexual. These fears exist inside all of us, anarchists included,
and we need to talk about them, not hide them under ideology, under
great words such as revolution, insurrection, freedom. Because all these
beautiful words, if they are developed and brought about in reality by
men who are afraid of the different, run the risk of becoming the
instruments of the power of the future, not instruments of liberation.
What do the American ghetto riots such as the one in Los Angeles
signify?
The collapse of actual socialism has brought the apparent universal
domination of the Americans to the fore. I say apparent because it is
not just the Americans. If we make the mistake, as I seem to see being
made during the course of these talks in various towns in Greece over
the past few days, of aiming all our criticism at the Americans, we will
not be able to understand the general character of the new imperialism.
Yes, we have American domination, but also that of the European
Community and the Japanese economic colossus. But this triumvirate is
different to the power structures of the past. They do not relate to
each other in terms of the competition that existed before the collapse
of the Soviet empire, but share economic relations of imperialist
administration, that is, the construction and maintenance of world
domination.
For example, the situation in the former Yugoslavia is only
comprehensible through an analysis of the new world imperialism — not
only Yankee, but also European. Just think, west Germany has planned to
invest thousands of billions of marks over the next ten years to raise
east Germany to the level of western consumerism. And that concerns just
17 million people. Now, if such a project were to be made for the whole
of the East, from Russia to the former Yugoslavia, an impossible sum
would be required. No world power in existence is capable of bringing
about such an operation, and world imperialism is aware of this.
What is the solution then? War. That is why there is no American
intervention in the former Yugoslavia, because a ferocious, destructive
war such as the one now taking place will throw the Serbian, Croatian,
and Bosnian people into conditions of such acute poverty that even the
slightest intervention, any tiny act of humanitarian aid, will be seen
as something positive. Think of such a situation existing without the
war. Combative peoples at the gates of Eastern Europe, on the border
with Greece. Combative peoples in extreme poverty, with a great capacity
for revolutionary social action: what a danger for the European
Community! Unfortunately I believe the use of war as an instrument of
imperialist management could well be extended, and other examples of
this can be seen.
The question of the riots within the American empire is quite different.
We must bear in mind that it is not just a question of America, because
similar events have also taken place in other countries. More than ten
years ago there were riots in Brixton. Then in Switzerland, there was
the revolt in Zurich, and in Germany, in Hamburg. Under the conditions
of advanced capitalism and precisely due to the process of expulsion of
the old proletariat from the factory, there is an increasingly wide
strata of new poor who have nothing to lose, and who constitute a threat
that is ready to explode at any moment.
It should be said however that the significance of these explosions
should not be overestimated. It is true that anarchists have always been
in favour of such revolts. Whenever possible, they have participated in
them, anywhere — in society or in prison, and always on the side of the
weakest. But today they must avoid the theoretical risk of putting the
social rebels of the future in the place of the worker centrality of
yesterday. Society is a complex problem, which has nothing in its
centre. There is not one small part of society that is capable of
realising the revolution, not even the Los Angeles rioters. Even if we
sympathise with them, even if we are alongside them. But we must admit
that they are just one element, a sort of involuntary anticipation of
possible future mass insurrections, not the main element. And this needs
to be said clearly, against all those who deliberately accuse us of
forgetting the roles of the other social strata.
What relationship is there between the recent scandals in Italy and
Greece, and the new management of power?
The problem of the Italian and Greek scandals is important, and it is no
coincidence that these have come to light at the present time, because
they correspond to profound changes in the management of power. The new
global capitalism, more obvious in some places than others — for example
it is more evident in the United States, less so in Greece — needs a
political managerial class, not one characterised by ideological
agreement, but one technically suited to the managerial needs of global
imperialism.
For example, a management of power similar to that of the ex-USSR, or a
kind of national socialism, would of necessity have had recourse to mass
arrests, mass executions, and would have resolved the problem of a
revolt in a few days. A democratic management must use other means.
Replacing the head of government is a difficult thing to do, and
scandals are an excellent means of achieving the replacement of the old
social leadership by the new technocratic one.
Can you tell us anything about the Gladio in Italy?
As Machiavelli once wrote, anything is legitimate in the political
arena. In Italy the Gladio scandal is the Christian Democrats’ response
to the denunciation of their clandestine activity after the war, which
came to light in the Soviet archives years later. Yes, I said it was the
Christian Democrats’ response... Contrary to what is believed, it was
not the Communist Party that denounced the armed activity of the USA and
the Christian Democrats. It was the Christian Democrats themselves who
justified their activities in terms of the defence of capitalist ideals,
in a desperate attempt to save the old political leadership by building
a ‘revolutionary’ purity to show that people who had taken up arms in
the past should not be made to pay by Capital. Contrary to the logic of
other economic scandals, the Gladio is an exercise in inverse logic.
Whereas the economic scandals are aimed at destroying the old
leadership, the Gladio operation tried to save it. Nevertheless this
proved impossible, because the needs of world imperialism are greater,
and end up by taking over.
In a Greek anarchist paper of 1896 there is an interesting article on
ecology. What do you think about the fact that today Capital itself uses
ecology as a means of restructuring?
First we need to put this into context, given that you’ve made reference
to a paper from the nineteenth century. Anarchism is not a political
movement and never has been. It is a social movement, a carrier of
social ideas, and so has always, right from its birth, dealt with the
entirety of social problems. If one looks at anarchist papers of the
last century, one can find not only the question of ecology addressed
but also any other problem that concerns man. The anarchists were the
first to talk about free love, eroticism, homosexuality, about all the
aspects that concern daily life. This is one of the strengths of
anarchism, and has led to the anarchist movement being considered, today
as in the past, a great reservoir of ideas into which everyone can dip,
and from which Capital itself has derived many concepts. But anarchists
are aware of this. They have always put their ideas at the disposal of
others, because, as Proudhon said, the worst kind of property is
intellectual property. Anarchists have never been afraid that Capital
might steal their ideas, because they have always known that they are
capable of moving beyond them. So, if at the end of the last century
anarchists were ecologists in a particular way, in that they were the
only ones to be ecologists, now that Power has ‘become
ecologically-minded’ and ecology has become a leading industry,
anarchists are no longer ecologists the same as before. They no longer
say that it is necessary to save nature, but rather that in order to
save nature it is necessary to destroy both those who are polluting it,
and those who want to save it using State means.
How do you see yourself?
That is a question that I was asked before many years ago here in
Greece, in a very different political situation. The physical conditions
were also very different then. At the time I replied: a comrade among
comrades. Now that I am older my reply is the same: a comrade among
comrades.