Anarchic update news all over the world - 24.07.2018

Today's Topics:

   
1.  anarchist communist group ACG: The Poverty of Student Unions
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  freedomnews.org.uk Beating the letting agents - Analysis,
      Jul 19th (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  zabalaza.net Alternatives to Capitalism: 1936 - Rise and
      Fall of the Spanish Revolution, POSTED ON JULY 19, 2018 by Shawn
      Hattingh (ZACF) (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
4.  France, Alternative Libertaire AL #285 - Book: "Discovering
      Engels" (fr, it, pt)[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
5.  Britain, London Anarchist Federation - Reading group #4
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
6.  Turkey, anarsist faaliyet: We are in the streets of the
      Suruç Massacre's Third Year! (tr) [machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1






Institutions exist to do the exact opposite of their stated aims. The police force don't 
exist to protect you and stop crime, but instead to keep you in line and to facilitate a 
unilaterial class war. ---- Schools don't exist to educate people and teach them how to 
think independently, but rather to indoctrinate and create obedient workers. ---- 
Governments don't exist to enact the political will of the people but to frustrate it. 
---- The same is true of student unions. A few months back, there was a wave of student 
activitism, with hundreds of students across the country occupying in solidarity with 
academics whose pensions were being obliterated. These actions, and many others like them, 
are great. They lead to the radicalisation of those involved and widen the terms of 
political debate on campuses - for example Leicester University's student occupation was 
calling for senior leaders of the University to be elected rather than appointed.

But this isn't the first time we have seen this happen. Every now and then the student 
movement starts to take actions, these actions start to gain speed, but then suddenly die 
out. When I was at University the government was passing legislation to treble tuition 
fees, and students attacked the buildings of political parties in London and made a move 
on parliament, but then these movements died out.

They died out for several reasons, but one of them is because students engaged with their 
Students' unions. SU's are neither unions, nor are they made up of students. In fact, they 
have a fundamentally different set of motivations and priorities to the ‘student movement' 
and student body which they claim to represent.

Student unions are a problem in a series of different ways. First of all, they direct the 
energies of some of the most active students (and also some of the most despicable) into 
electioneering. A handful of students each year become paid elected representatives of the 
student body. These students are led to believe that once elected they will be the 
recognised legitimate voice of students (they won't and they aren't) and that they will be 
in control of the Student Union and its institutional power (they won't be and it doesn't 
have any). This wouldn't be a problem in and of itself, if it wasn't for that fact that 
the process of gaining and maintaining elected office takes a number of students who could 
be challenging pre-existing figures of authority, and leads them to imitate them instead.

The second way in which student unions are a problem is that they claim to be the 
legitmate voice of students. How can a handful of elected students represent an entire 
student body? And would they if they could?

Student unions can claim to make representative decisions without ever consulting the 
student body, or they can consult it to death. What should the graduate office be called? 
How many representative roles should a student be able to undertake at one time? Should we 
change article 7 of the code of conducts for international volunteers working in 
Sainsbury? As a result, students disengage.

In these ways, the Student Union becomes a proxy for student opinion that can be slapped 
on to decisions as a method of legitimation, often without a single student being 
meaningfully involved. This, in turn, kills any radicalism within the student movement 
because it's hard to campaign against a decision which your representative body has 
already legitimised - and its impossible to make meaningful change at your institution if 
you have to formally change the position of your SU before even starting on the university.

And a final problem with student unions is that they last a long time. SU's have a 
separate set of institutional interests to the student body as a whole, as SU's receive 
large sums of (originally student) money from the university, and are dependent on the 
university allowing them access to key personnel and meetings to make change. Therefore 
SU's will always delay challenging the university in the hope of maintaining relationships 
with the university so change can be made at some later (unspecified) date, and the large 
number of SU staff (full time paid people who aren't students) can continue to pull their 
salaries in the meantime. Most students are at university for three years, but SUs put off 
challenging the university indefinitely.

What does all this mean for the student movement? For individual students it means avoid 
SU's like the plague and be aware that they replicate and perpetuate power structures that 
exist across society as a whole.

For the student movement, it must be realised that reforming student unions is a pipe 
dream and that any meaningful actions will have to be protected from the student union.

https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2018/07/21/the-poverty-of-student-unions/

------------------------------

Message: 2





Brighton SolFed writes on lessons learned over the first year of its efforts to build up 
an anarchist housing union. ---- After a string of successful cases largely against wage 
theft in the hospitality sector, Brighton Solidarity Federation launched our housing union 
in June 2017. Our experience in Brighton was of rents rocketing up, while conditions were 
getting worse. Huge increases in student numbers led to ever more scumbag landlords and 
letting agencies shoving more and more people in ever smaller spaces, and becoming 
increasingly brazen in withholding deposits. Brighton and Hove is a city with an 
incredibly transitory population, and this makes it ripe for the worst kinds of 
exploitation. ---- We wanted to focus on our direct action approach, rather than a 
legalistic model. While we made sure to inform tenants of such possibilities and 
signposting where appropriate - for example in cases of deposit theft using the Deposit 
Protection Scheme (DPS) - we were clear to explain why we don't pursue cases in this way.

With the DPS, landlords and agencies have three different schemes to choose from, so it is 
not in their interests to consistently rule in favour of tenants. Moreover, agencies pay 
staff for such administration, who have knowledge and experience of the regulations, 
meaning the deck is stacked in their favour.

Direct action public campaigns also help to highlight that many of us share these 
problems, and that our power lies in banding together to fight them. DPS procedures keep 
problems private and help agencies to guard against the formation of solidarity and 
support amongst their tenants.

And of course not all tenants have the evidence required to challenge a deposit deduction. 
The landlord/tenant relationship is fundamentally exploitative, suggesting that someone 
only has the right to a home if they line someone else's pockets. We think this is wrong, 
so when even more money is taken from tenants via deposit deductions, our solidarity is 
with tenants whether or not they have the types of ‘evidence' required by a DPS.

While deposit theft is one of main issues presented we have also been determined not to 
constrain our actions to this. Where tenants have been forced to live in an unsanitary 
shithole, and then had their deposit kept on spurious grounds, we have felt that just 
trying to get the deposit back wasn't enough, and we should pursue compensation for the 
terrible conditions they had been forced to live in.

In one case that we had in late summer 2017 the tenants had had to endure damp, mould and 
a bug infestation. We supported them with a direct action campaign that resulted in them 
receiving £3,900 in compensation, as well as the return of their deposit (£2,400), from 
one of the most notorious student lettings agencies in the city.

Another thing we felt important was to not be constantly on the defensive and trying to 
get back money after people had left the property, and so we have fought several cases 
demanding repairs, basic amenities (in one case, a working cooker!) or for issues like 
damp to be dealt with. We weren't content to just let these issues build up until people 
were forced to leave.

 From the start, we've sought to provide advice on rights, and help in composing demand 
letters to landlords, even where people felt they were unwilling to engage in a direct 
action dispute - we are regularly holding advice surgeries and drop in sessions.

It's been important to support people whether they are members or not - the conditions 
that allow agents to rip us off affect the working class as a whole, and our politics mean 
we'll fight against this. We stress that this is their case, and that they are in the 
driving seat, but that we will offer advice, solidarity and support (so long as it doesn't 
contradict our politics).

So far, this strategy has worked well with victories and several tenants joining us as a 
result of our campaigns alongside them, and many more supporting campaigns other than 
their own. We want to build our union so we can be an effective class fighting force, not 
just as growth for its own sake, or to build our credentials for careers in the radical 
NGO sector.

Along the way we've encountered a number of themes - there are a significant layer of 
exceptionally scummy agencies whose entire business model relies on ripping off tenants' 
deposits and not providing even a basic level of service.

At a certain point, as campaigning continues and people become more aware of their basic 
rights, things will come to a head. So far, some agencies have managed to just about 
survive direct action campaigns, but at some point we don't think they will be able to 
survive their tenants working together put a stop to their tricks and dodgy tactics. If an 
agency can't survive without using these business practices, we're happy to see them collapse.

On the other hand, we've also remained aware that even the "good" agents are still 
fundamentally surviving on exploiting people, and living off people's need for a home. 
Even the best letting agent or landlord is a parasite, and where they are exploiting 
tenants, we will fight them.

brightonsolfed.org.uk
brighton@solfed.org.uk

https://freedomnews.org.uk/beating-the-letting-agents/

------------------------------

Message: 3






In this edition of the Education Series we look at one of the greatest experiments with an 
alternative to capitalism: the 1936 Spanish Revolution. People today seeking a democratic 
socialist and egalitarian society can draw lessons from both its successes and failures. 
---- The Spanish Revolution occurred in the context of a civil war, but even so for a 
short period of time social relations changed - bosses were fired; workers practiced 
direct democracy in the fields and factories; greater gender equality was won; and 
socialism from below looked like a possibility. ---- But the Revolution never ran its full 
course. The situation in Spain during the Revolution and linked Civil War - was 
complicated. During the height of the Revolution workers in many parts of Spain, like 
Barcelona, controlled the factories in two thirds of the country - although the state 
continued to exist and one third of Spain was controlled by fascists. The main reason the 
Revolution stalled is that the state - controlled by the Stalinists and Socialist Party - 
was not overthrown by the working class.

The achievements
Prior to July 1936 Spain was tense. Members of the country's largest trade union, the 
anarchist National Confederation of Labour (CNT), had been holding general strikes as part 
of their intention to carry out a revolution. For the CNT the revolution involved smashing 
capitalism and the state and replacing these with federated worker, peasant and community 
councils.

Fascists had also been preparing and on 19 July 1936 they launched a coup under the 
leadership of General Franco to stop the expected revolution.

The state - then headed up by the Socialist Party and later Stalinists - failed to prevent 
the coup. Members of the CNT, however, were prepared. In one of the CNT's strongholds, 
Barcelona, they expropriated 30 000 rifles from a military base and distributed them to 
workers. With the arrival of the coup in Barcelona, the CNT fought the fascist troops; 
defeating them.

With news that the coup had been defeated in Barcelona workers and peasants across Spain 
rose up and the fascists could only gain control of one third of the country. In the other 
areas workers began seizing factories and collectivising them. In Barcelona over 3000 
factories were seized and workers began operating them on the basis of direct democracy 
and worker self-management.

In the countryside farm workers collectivised land with over 15 million acres being 
expropriated from rural capitalists. Over 2000 self-managed rural collectives were 
established, in which 7 million people participated. These proved that there was, and is, 
an alternative - based on the libertarian socialist (also known as anarchist) principles 
of federated direct democracy - to centralised bureaucratised state planning.

During the Revolution, women achieved more freedom. Marriage was replaced by relationships 
based on free consent. For the first time abortion and contraception became available. 
Women entered the workplace on a massive scale and many were involved in the workers' 
militias that fought the fascists.

The failings
Before 1936, libertarian socialists (anarchists), mainly through the 1.8 million strong 
CNT, had been preparing for a revolution. Two months before the Revolution, in May 1936, 
the CNT held a congress in Zaragoza. There, plans were made to smash capitalism and 
replace it with self-management, socialism and working class self-governance - instead of 
a state - using federated workers' and community councils.

When the Revolution broke out the plan of the CNT Zaragoza Congress was unbelievably not 
put into practice - and this eventually saw the Revolution defeated.

Indeed, following July 19, the state in some provinces collapsed. The CNT held power on 
the streets of cities like Barcelona, but the fragments of the state remained in other 
parts of Spain. The state's representatives contacted the CNT and proposed that a joint 
Anti-fascist Militia Committee (AMC) - made up of representatives of the Liberal, 
Stalinist and Socialist parties along with delegates from the CNT - be established to take 
charge of the military effort to defeat the remaining fascist forces. Importantly, as part 
of this proposal, the existing state would be left untouched and would supposedly lead the 
fight against the fascists.

Within the CNT a debate took place regarding the proposal. A section of the CNT, along 
with the Anarchist Youth Movement, argued the CNT should reject the proposal and that the 
Revolution must be carried out according to the plans of the Zaragoza Congress. Countering 
this was a group that argued a Popular Front with Socialists, Liberals and Stalinists was 
needed to defeat fascism before even thinking about completing the Revolution. 
Consequently they argued the CNT should enter the AMC, saying that if the CNT smashed the 
state the war effort against the fascists would collapse. Ultimately the group arguing for 
the Popular Front won the majority of votes and the CNT joined the AMC. A large minority, 
however, remained opposed to this.

In fact, the decision to join the AMC had very bad consequences for the CNT and the 
Revolution. With the state left intact the Communists and Socialists used it as a base to 
build their power (they were not interested in socialism but wanted to use the state to 
increase their own power and gain control over the economy through nationalisation). The 
Stalinists and Socialist Party, when powerful enough, used the state and its power against 
the CNT and the Revolution. In choosing to align with the state, the CNT ceased to be 
anarchist or libertarian socialist. Eventually two members of the CNT even became 
Ministers in the state. The consequences were that these Ministers began identifying with 
the state's positions. The libertarian socialist/anarchist analysis that entering into 
state power changed the nature of parties/unions - and not the other way round - proved 
correct.

By 1937, the Socialists and Stalinists had used their control of the state to increase 
their power. These two parties feared stateless socialism far more than they did the 
fascists. By May 1937, the Socialists and Stalinists felt comfortable enough to openly 
attack the anarchists and wider working class. The confrontation came in Barcelona when 
the military was sent against CNT/anarchist workers. In the fighting that followed the CNT 
and workers beat the Stalinists and Socialists. Sickeningly, the two CNT Ministers 
appealed to the CNT militants and workers to lay down their weapons. Again a majority, 
with reluctance, listened. In the aftermath the Communists arrested and tortured thousands 
of anarchist workers and sympathetic leftists. With this the power of the CNT was broken. 
The self-managed factories and fields were confiscated from workers by the state and run 
by bureaucrats or the former owners.

Following the events of May 1937, the Stalinist-led state lost battle after battle against 
the fascists. In early 1939, the state surrendered and Franco was installed as fascist 
dictator. By then, the revolution was long dead - killed by the Stalinists, Socialist 
Party and the tactical blunders of the CNT in July 1936.

Conclusion
The Spanish Revolution, although incomplete, showed socialism could be built from below. 
But it also proved that in a revolution the working class can't just take over production; 
it also needs to get rid of the state and replace it with a new system based on federated 
workers' and community councils. If this does not happen, Spain shows politicians in the 
state will smother the revolution in their own interests.

But the Revolution never ran its full course. The situation in Spain during the Revolution 
and linked Civil War - was complicated. During the height of the Revolution workers in 
many parts of Spain, like Barcelona, controlled the factories in two thirds of the country 
- although the state continued to exist and one third of Spain was controlled by fascists. 
The main reason the Revolution stalled is that the state - controlled by the Stalinists 
and Socialist Party - was not overthrown by the working class.

The achievements
Prior to July 1936 Spain was tense. Members of the country's largest trade union, the 
anarchist National Confederation of Labour (CNT), had been holding general strikes as part 
of their intention to carry out a revolution. For the CNT the revolution involved smashing 
capitalism and the state and replacing these with federated worker, peasant and community 
councils.

Fascists had also been preparing and on 19 July 1936 they launched a coup under the 
leadership of General Franco to stop the expected revolution.

The state - then headed up by the Socialist Party and later Stalinists - failed to prevent 
the coup. Members of the CNT, however, were prepared. In one of the CNT's strongholds, 
Barcelona, they expropriated 30 000 rifles from a military base and distributed them to 
workers. With the arrival of the coup in Barcelona, the CNT fought the fascist troops; 
defeating them.

With news that the coup had been defeated in Barcelona workers and peasants across Spain 
rose up and the fascists could only gain control of one third of the country. In the other 
areas workers began seizing factories and collectivising them. In Barcelona over 3000 
factories were seized and workers began operating them on the basis of direct democracy 
and worker self-management.

In the countryside farm workers collectivised land with over 15 million acres being 
expropriated from rural capitalists. Over 2000 self-managed rural collectives were 
established, in which 7 million people participated. These proved that there was, and is, 
an alternative - based on the libertarian socialist (also known as anarchist) principles 
of federated direct democracy - to centralised bureaucratised state planning.

During the Revolution, women achieved more freedom. Marriage was replaced by relationships 
based on free consent. For the first time abortion and contraception became available. 
Women entered the workplace on a massive scale and many were involved in the workers' 
militias that fought the fascists.

The failings
Before 1936, libertarian socialists (anarchists), mainly through the 1.8 million strong 
CNT, had been preparing for a revolution. Two months before the Revolution, in May 1936, 
the CNT held a congress in Zaragoza. There, plans were made to smash capitalism and 
replace it with self-management, socialism and working class self-governance - instead of 
a state - using federated workers' and community councils.

When the Revolution broke out the plan of the CNT Zaragoza Congress was unbelievably not 
put into practice - and this eventually saw the Revolution defeated.

Indeed, following July 19, the state in some provinces collapsed. The CNT held power on 
the streets of cities like Barcelona, but the fragments of the state remained in other 
parts of Spain. The state's representatives contacted the CNT and proposed that a joint 
Anti-fascist Militia Committee (AMC) - made up of representatives of the Liberal, 
Stalinist and Socialist parties along with delegates from the CNT - be established to take 
charge of the military effort to defeat the remaining fascist forces. Importantly, as part 
of this proposal, the existing state would be left untouched and would supposedly lead the 
fight against the fascists.

Within the CNT a debate took place regarding the proposal. A section of the CNT, along 
with the Anarchist Youth Movement, argued the CNT should reject the proposal and that the 
Revolution must be carried out according to the plans of the Zaragoza Congress. Countering 
this was a group that argued a Popular Front with Socialists, Liberals and Stalinists was 
needed to defeat fascism before even thinking about completing the Revolution. 
Consequently they argued the CNT should enter the AMC, saying that if the CNT smashed the 
state the war effort against the fascists would collapse. Ultimately the group arguing for 
the Popular Front won the majority of votes and the CNT joined the AMC. A large minority, 
however, remained opposed to this.

In fact, the decision to join the AMC had very bad consequences for the CNT and the 
Revolution. With the state left intact the Communists and Socialists used it as a base to 
build their power (they were not interested in socialism but wanted to use the state to 
increase their own power and gain control over the economy through nationalisation). The 
Stalinists and Socialist Party, when powerful enough, used the state and its power against 
the CNT and the Revolution. In choosing to align with the state, the CNT ceased to be 
anarchist or libertarian socialist. Eventually two members of the CNT even became 
Ministers in the state. The consequences were that these Ministers began identifying with 
the state's positions. The libertarian socialist/anarchist analysis that entering into 
state power changed the nature of parties/unions - and not the other way round - proved 
correct.

By 1937, the Socialists and Stalinists had used their control of the state to increase 
their power. These two parties feared stateless socialism far more than they did the 
fascists. By May 1937, the Socialists and Stalinists felt comfortable enough to openly 
attack the anarchists and wider working class. The confrontation came in Barcelona when 
the military was sent against CNT/anarchist workers. In the fighting that followed the CNT 
and workers beat the Stalinists and Socialists. Sickeningly, the two CNT Ministers 
appealed to the CNT militants and workers to lay down their weapons. Again a majority, 
with reluctance, listened. In the aftermath the Communists arrested and tortured thousands 
of anarchist workers and sympathetic leftists. With this the power of the CNT was broken. 
The self-managed factories and fields were confiscated from workers by the state and run 
by bureaucrats or the former owners.

Following the events of May 1937, the Stalinist-led state lost battle after battle against 
the fascists. In early 1939, the state surrendered and Franco was installed as fascist 
dictator. By then, the revolution was long dead - killed by the Stalinists, Socialist 
Party and the tactical blunders of the CNT in July 1936.

Conclusion
The Spanish Revolution, although incomplete, showed socialism could be built from below. 
But it also proved that in a revolution the working class can't just take over production; 
it also needs to get rid of the state and replace it with a new system based on federated 
workers' and community councils. If this does not happen, Spain shows politicians in the 
state will smother the revolution in their own interests.

https://zabalaza.net/2018/07/19/alternatives-to-capitalism-1936-rise-and-fall-of-the-spanish-revolution/#more-5576

------------------------------

Message: 4





"The purpose of this book is not to oppose Engels to Marx but to show the singularity of 
the first " , the first sentence of the 4 th cover of this book sums up the teaching of 
that book about this character of worldwide notoriety but ultimately little known and in 
particular by the libertarians, often seen by them at best as a simple (or even minimal) 
contributor of Marxism, at worst as a follower blindly follower of Marx. ---- If the 
introduction rightly raises that there are " Marxisms " but no " engelsism ", it is 
because Engels remains inseparable from Marxism and this is true in his writings. Perhaps 
this is Marx's most important and best contribution to the materialist conception of 
history and his criticism of political economy, which makes him essentially a pillar of 
the current of thought that bears his name. ? Neither should we deny or downplay Engels' 
important contribution to these two fundamental concepts of Marxism, which is partly why 
there is no engelsism; and besides his decisive participation in these fundamentals, one 
can even think that he enriches it thanks to his curiosity which pushes him to study the 
most varied subjects, even more than his companion: thus in these twelve selected texts we 
see him approaching rather traditional fields such as mechanization or philosophy, but 
also marriage, the withering of the state, religion or the theory of evolution.

It is to be regretted that the Engels texts presented are even shorter than their 
explanations, which are certainly very good. One can also raise the fact that the work 
sometimes requires the knowledge of certain basic Marxist concepts, whereas it is 
published in a collection which wants to be didactic and addressed to the novices. It is 
still not less fast, easy and pleasant to read.

Gabriel (AL Dijon)

Florian Gulli and Jean Quétier, Discover Engels , Social Publishing, 2017, 144 pages, 10 euros

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Lire-Decouvrir-Engels

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Message: 5





Our reading group will continue on the 3rd Tuesday of the month, aka 21st August 7pm at 
Freedom Bookshop. This month we're looking at culture, power and consumerism with the 
following texts on Situationism and the well decent band, Crass, in an article confusingly 
written by someone called Cross. Cross on Crass, then. ---- Matthews: An Introduction to 
the Situationists 
(https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/jan-d-matthews-an-introduction-to-the-situationists.pdf) 
---- Debord: Decomposition: The Ultimate Stage of Bourgeois Thought, In: Report on the 
Construction of Situations, p.6 
(https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/guy-debord-report-on-the-construction-of-situations.pdf) 
---- Guy Debord: Chapter 8 - Negation and Consumption Within Culture, In: Society of the 
Spectacle, p.68-77 
(https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/guy-debord-the-society-of-the-spectacle.pdf)

https://aflondon.wordpress.com/2018/07/19/reading-group-4/

------------------------------

Message: 6





Three years ago today we were on the streets today to commemorate the 33 revolutionaries 
who were massacred by the state and state-sponsored ISID in Suruç. ---- At the time of the 
explosion three years ago, at 11:45 we commemorated the tombs of Alper Sapan, Ece Dinç, 
Vatan Budak simultaneously. ---- We attended a 33 minute sit-down campaign organized by 
the Suruç Family Initiative in Halitaga Caddesi, Kadikoy, every month, despite all the 
obstacles of the police. ---- It was then convened in front of the Süreyya Opera at 19:00 
hours by the Youth Organizations. The police attacked the revolutionaries who wanted to 
walk to Mehmet Ayvalitas Square and perform a memorial there for their murdered comrades. 
Fourteen people, including our comrade Elijah Seyrek, were taken into custody.

At 21:00 at Khalkedon Square, we were reunited to perform the press statement that was 
being thwarted and to show once more that we would not die with the custodians. Despite 
the threats and obstacles of the police work, the commemoration and press statement was 
carried out and the action was ended and the police station in front of the Rihtim Police 
Station where the detained colleagues were held. The detainees have not been released yet.

Three years ago today, 33 of us killed by bombardment of those who can not bear us, of 
course, with arrests and detainees will not be able to yearning. We will continue to 
struggle to be in the streets till our true belief in a free life, true justice. We are angry!

The accounts of 33 anarchist and socialist revolutionaries murdered in Suruc will be asked!

The killer state will account!

Solidarity , Street

https://anarsistfaaliyet.org/sokak/suruc-katliaminin-ucuncu-yilinda-sokaklardaydik/

------------------------------