Table Of Content

Insurrection, Collected pieces from Insurrection magazine decades of remakarble anarchist theory and provocation inspirational biographies, personal and theoretical expositions and memoirs: life in prison, life incognito, life as an anarchist, past and present ELEPHANT EDITIONS ElephantEditions.net Some texts have been lighlty edited for clarity and spelling. The cover continues the theme started by the design folks at 1882 for previous Elephant Editions reprints by Little Black Cart. Thanks for the inspiration! 1 Why Insurrection 4 Dosier Comiso 8 The Cruise Missile at Comiso Can be Prevented Organizational Document of the Self-Managed Leagues U lS Towards Anti-Militarism 20 Torture in Italy 23 Document Azione Rivoluzionaria 33 Editorial 3 3 The Logic of Insurrection 34 The Devil's Plans 3S Stop the City? Politics in Wolves' Clothing 37 Chronicle 41 Vandalising for Fun not Profit 43 Stop the City? From Information to Attack 44 A Question of Dietetics, or Gluten-Free Christ 4S At Greenham as in Camiso 4S Health Service War Plan: Home Defence Sub-Region 6 46 Comiso SO Street Politics in Barcelona S3 Communique S3 The Whole and the Part SS Strategy & Methods S9 The Question of the Miners 60 New Forms of Counter-Revolution 63 Interview from Segovia Prison 68 Insurrection 69 Chronicle 74 The Church and the Objective Spirit 7S Re A Couple of Fools and a Piece of Paper 77 Editorial 77 Violence and Nonviolence 78 Whose Victory? 79 On Amnesty 80 More on Amnesty 81 Neighborhood Watch 81 Pannekoek on Trade Unionism 88 The Miners Strike at Carmaux 89 Vegetarian or Vegetate? 90 Anarchism and the National Liberation Struggle 91 In Times of Danger, Halfway Measures Lead to Certain Death 97 Editorial 98 Social Conflict 99 Beyond Workerism, Beyond Syndicalism 100 Beyond the Structure of Synthesis 101 Autonomous Base Nucleus 102 The Informal Organization 104 Repression Against the Anarchist Movement in Greece 104 The Affinity Group 106 Insurrection 106 Internationalism 107 Anti-Nuclear Sabotage in Italy 116 Illegality 117 National Liberation Struggle 118 The Nuclear Mafia 119 The Struggle in Palestine 121 Breaking out of the Ghetto 123 Prison 123 Murder by Media 127 Editorial 128 A Question of Class 130 Against Technology 132 Pinelli, Nineteen Years On 132 Sabotage Against Shell 135 Against Ecology 136 Sabotage of Information Technology Systems Rural Violence 142 143 The Moral Split 145 Survival Gathering, Toronto 1988 147 Actions 148 Experia 151 More Actions 151 Poland: The Role of Solidarnosc 155 Editorial 155 A False Problem 156 The Pylons of Death Crumble 157 Anarchists Against Apartheid 158 Ecological Luddism 159 Toyota Exacerbates Apartheid 159 Towards a New Projectuality 161 Germinating Resistance Against Shell's Biotechnology 162 China: Deng's Guarantee 165 A Democratic Frame Up 166 Anarchists and Action 167 ALF: Striking the Laboratories of Power 169 General Thrown into the Sea 169 Schools in Flames 170 Palestine: Time for Action 171 One Less Sweatshop 172 Leoncavallo 173 The Catastrophe Psychosis 174 AIDS and Biological Warfare 175 The Violence of Poverty 176 On the Subject of Pinelli 178 In the Shadow of the Gallows 179 Let's Get the State out of Our Veins Issue 0 December 1982 Why Insurrection OUR TASK as anarchists, our main preoccupation and greatest desire, is to see the social revolution realized: terrible upheavel of men and institutions that finally succeeds in putting an end to exploi tation and establishing the reign of justice. For we anarchists the revolution is our guide, our constant point of reference, no matter what we are doing or what problem we are concerned with. The anarchy we want will not be possible without the painful revolutionary break. If we want to avoid turning this into simply a dream we must struggle to destroy the State and exploiters through the revolution. But the revolution is not a myth simply to be used as a point of reference. Precisely because it is a concrete event, it must be built daily through more modest attempts that do not have all the liberating characteristics of the social revolution in the true sense. These more modest attempts are insurrections. In them the uprising of the most exploited of the masses and the most politically sen tisized minority, opens the way to the possible involvement of increasingly wider strata of exploited in a flux of rebellion which could lead to the revolution but could also end up in the establishment of a new power or a bloody confirmation of the old one. In the case of the latter, although the insur rection begins as a liberating uprising it concludes bitterly with the re-establishment of State and private dominion. That is the natural way of things. Insurrection is the indispensable element of the revolution without which, without a long and painful series of which, there will be no revolution and power will reign undisturbed in the fullness of its might. We are not to be discouraged. Once again, obtusely, we are preparing and struggling for the insurrection which will come about, a small part of the great future mosaic of the revolution. Certainly, capitalism contains deep contradictions which push it towards processes of adjust ment and evolution aimed at avoiding the periodic crises that afflict it; but we cannot cradle our selves in waiting for these crises. When they happen they will be welcomed if they respond to the requirements for accelerating the elements of the insurrectional process. In the meantime, for our part, we are preparing ourselves and the exploited masses for insurrection. In this sense we consider the time is always ripe for the next insurrection. Better a failed insur rection than a hundred vacillations which cause the failure of a hundred occasions from which it might have been possible for the final revolution to break out. We are therefore against those who say that the recent defeat of the revolutionary movement should make us reflect and conclude that we should be more prudent. We consider that the time for insurrection has come precisely because it is always time to fight, whereas procrastinating is useful only to capital. To prepare for insurrection means to prepare the subjective conditions (personal and material) which consent a specific anarchist minority to create the indispensable circumstances for the de velopment of the insurrectional process. Although insurrection is a mass phenomenon, and would risk aborting immediately if it were not, its begingnin is always the result of the action of a decided minority, a handful of brave ones capable of attacking the nerve centres of the partial objective to be reached. We must be very clear on this point. The tasks of the anarchist struggle against power can be extremely varied, but all-in our opinion-must be coherently directed towards preparing the in surrection. Some comrades may want to dedicate themselves to theoretical clarification, economic analyses, philosophy or historical research but all this must be immediately functional to the prepa ration of that minority capable of realizing the insurrection, acting in such a way that the masses participate as widely as possible or that at least that they do not hinder it. Some comrades might consider the insurrection realizable in the near future (not put off to infinity), others that it can be realized right away: this can determine a division of tasks, in the sense that the former will be inclined to interest themselves more in the problems of revolutionary culture, but their final aim must be the same. Otherwise the rebel forces, who need precisely clarity to organize action and not issue o chatter to put it off, would be lulled to sleep. ing. To the ideological model corresponds orga The minority's task of preparation is there nizational groupings which end up putting the fore twofold: on the one hand that of being oretical prejudice before the immediate interests sensitized to problems at the level of the class of liberation. Moreover, the analytical formulae struggle that are not only military and political of a large part of the revolutionary movement are but principally of a social and economic nature. of an authoritarian character, therefore envisage Following that, concrete, specific and detailed the conquest of the State and not its immediate preparation with the insurrection in view. destruction. They foresee its claimed use in an Once again, we insist: the preparation of antibourgeois sense and not its disappearance. the wide masses can in no way be one of the This part of the revolutionary movement there pre-conditions of the revolution. If we were to fore clearly have no interest in preparing for in wait for all the masses to be prepared for this surrection right away as they delude themselves grandiose task we would never do anything. that time is on their side, crumbling away the We are convinced that the preparation of the supporting base of capitalism and preparing the great masses will more than anything be a con revolutionary situation without the dangerous sequence of the revolution, and perhaps not the antichamber of the insurrection. We would thus most immediate one. On the contrary, the revo find this section of the revolutionary movement lutionary anarchist minority must be prepared to take an anti-insurrectional position, going as for the historical task which awaits them. far as (as we have seen in many cases recently) Let us also eliminate the argument of "pu attacking and denouncing the anarchist com rity." We do not only participate in insurrec rades who support the opposite thesis. We con tions led by anarchists but also in all the other clude at this point that it is not possible to widen insurrections which have the characteristics of the concept of the specific minority. Hypotheti the people in revolt, even if for some reason it is cally, when the stalinists unleash their insurrec our future enemies, the stalinists, who are, lead tional process, either because they are convinced ing them. In that case we should try to conquer that the revolutionary conditions are ripe or be a better place for ourselves in the struggle itself, cause they are drawn by the-solicitations of the during the events, defending as far as possible base who are not interested in ideological refine our programme of total liberation which we ments, then our task will be that of participating shall counterpose to the banally economic ones in the insurrection with all our forces, to fight of the authoritarians. It will be the insurrection in the concrete field of struggle and find there itself to verify the rest. the necessary space for our ideas. In the case of The insurrection is a task to be accom the contrary where it is we who are the initia plished right away. But with what concrete tors and proposers of the insurrection, we might means? We have seen that the specific minority quite-possibly find this part of the revolutionary must take charge of the initial attack, surpris movement to be in an opposite position or, at ing power and determining a situation of con best, in the position of waiting. fusion which could put the forces of repression Let us now see if the anarchist movement into difficulty and make the exploited masses as a whole can be considered a specific minor reflect upon whether to intervene or not. But ity capable of eventually realizing insurrection. what do we mean by specific minority? Per The conclusion is negative yet again. The con haps the revolutionary movement in the wide tradictions within the movement are immense sense? These questions require a clear answer. and mainly due to the fears and restraints which Let us begin with the widest hypothesis. a restricted group of pinchbecks have carefully From the point of view we are interested in, the seminated within it. The n;iovement today re revolutionary movement as a whole cannot be sembles an old coat covered in patches which considered a specific minority capable of realiz only with a great deal of good will remembers ing the insurrection together. It presents a whole its past splendours. The flight towards hypo series of contradictions which in turn mirror the thetical forms of elitist interventions such as contradictions of the society in which we are liv- the attempt to impose preconstituted analyses 2 or catechisms ready for use, or when it claimed ample or of influencing a wide range of sympa to supply the whole movement with the final thizers. Certainly this empirical aspect also ex analysis to be put into practice right away, has ists, bearing in mind that the maximum alliance proved a failure. The same flight backwards which will guarantee the success of future plans towards anarchosyndicalism which could not is that of the masses in revolt, but this aspect is fail to leave both the exploited as a whole and easily recuperated by the mechanism of capital the revolutionary comrades disappointed. And ist information which transform it into goods then the wider and ascertained politics of the retailing it through the newspapers, television, ostrich, of hiding behind the fear of provoca cinema, books, etc. The truth is that the specific tion in order to do nothing, only to intervene minority themselves, through realizing action, after the event, always with the scales at hand have the possibility of making something clear to weigh, judge and condemn those few com to others if they understand something them rades who were doing anything at all, even if selves in the moment of the action itself. The circumscribed and limited. From this part of action therefore means education through ac the movement there remains but the name, the tion, and education of oneseli and others. If we symbol, a few old comrades, a few young com consider thal we know everything and entrusl rades old before their time, a few optimists who exclusively in our own knowledge in the mo never lose lose hope, parchment mummies in ment of action, we place into the hands of capi their little shop. The great number of active talism a repetitive mechanism which inserts comrades who form the revolutionary part of itself perfectly within the generalized mecha the anarchist movement and who are ready to nism of capitalist productior which is, above all begin the struggle must not be discouraged by else, repetition to infinity. Cassandras and birds of ill omen. Action is the The action of the specific minority must measure for distinguishing beyond symbols therefore consist not of an interruption ol learn and declarations of principle. ing at one's own cost as tc what the reality of It is precisely the comrades who are avail the struggle is, but a gradual and complete able for action who make up the specific minor transformation of one's owr learning in show ity. They will be the ones to prepare and realize ing others how one learns to understand the re the insurrection in the ways and forms which ality of the struggle. If the action of the specific the experience of the revolutionary struggle as minority gives an example of anything ii gives a whole has transmitted to us, and taking into the example of how one learns to single out and consideration the recent modifications of the strike the enemy, and not how one teaches. The State and the bosses. The method cannot fail right action at the right time becomes the sub to take account of these minimal organization stance of the individual and specific attack and al forms of the base which will have to solve symbol of al the possible future attacks, anc the various problems which will arise during this unfurling of a momeni which has not yet the insurrectional preparation. In these organi reached ma turity is the maximum level o: inter zational forms the responsibility for the work vention which the minority reaches operating to be done must obviously fall on the revolu in the reality of the struggle. The class struggle tionary anarchist comrades and cannot be left characterizes the conflict in act and is the ele to goodwill or improvisation. At this stage the ment which allow: the concrete action of the very rules of survival impose the indispensable spe cific minority. Within it actior transforms conditions of security and caution. The urgency itself continually from attempt to understand tc of action puts an end to pointless chatter. attempt to teach. Cancelling the first moment There is more to be said of the actions car everything drown in repitition, cancelling the ried out in minimal structures of intervention se cond, everything drowns in in decision. by the specific minority as just identified. These In the continual flux of the class struggle actions cannot be considered purely from the one finds every thing, teachers and pupils. Ii it point of view of "propaganda by the deed". everything finds its righ place within the rela Their aim, in fact, is not that of giving an ex- tionship of strength. Whoever has no learned issue o 3