Anarchic update news all over the world - 26.08.2018

Today's Topics:

   
1.  Bangladesh Anarcho Syndicalist Federation: Anarchism vs.
      Marxism: A few notes on an old theme (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  Britain, brighton solfed: Proud Cabaret Pays Worker after
      SolFed Get Involved! (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  US, Black Rose/Rosa Negra Anarchist Federation Statement of
      Solidarity With the 2018 National Prison Strike 
     (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
4.  London Anarchist Federation: Reading group #4 write up
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
5.  Belarus, AG pramen - town in Mexico overthrew their local
      government. Things couldn't be going better (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
6.  Greece, anarchist group "dignified horse" / APO: 91 YEARS
      FROM THE RELIGION OF THE SARCO AND VANTSETS 
      ANARCHICAL PROJECTS
      (CURRENTLY ON 22/8/1927) (gr) [machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1





A piece taking on some misconceptions of Marxism commonly held by some anarchists. ---- 
More than one hundred years after the socialist movement split into warring Marxist and 
anarchist factions, there are signs, at least on a small scale, that people calling 
themselves anarchists and people calling themselves Marxists or "libertarian socialists" 
are finding ways of working together fruitfully. Questions immediately present themselves: 
To what extent are the old labels still valid? Have their meanings changed in the course 
of the last century? How solid is the new basis of unity? Have the old divisions been 
transcended? ---- But is it necessary to re-examine the old labels and divisions at all? 
Would it not be best to let sleeping polemics lie and simply concentrate on working together?
The problem is that a socialist movement - or libertarian movement: what terms can we 
validly use? - that hopes to develop has to confront historical, strategic, and 
theoretical questions. A socialist movement worthy of the name has to do more than get 
together for simple actions. It has to ask itself where it is trying to go, and how it 
proposes to get there: precisely the issues which sparked the fateful anarchist-Marxist 
split in the 1870's, and which kept the movements separated until today. Political 
question which are ignored do not vanish, they only reappear with all that much more 
destructive impact at a later date. They must be dealt with frankly.

But this does not mean that we are fated to barrenly re-fight old battles and re-live the 
splits and hostilities of the past. The world has changed a great deal since the 1870's, 
and the experience of the socialist movement during the past century has changed the 
problems we face immeasurably. Of no little importance is the re-vitalization of a Marxist 
current that is militantly anti-Leninist, and the re-emergence of an anarcho-communist 
movement which accepts (although not necessarily consciously) a good deal of Marxist 
analysis. There is a good deal of common ground on which we can come together.

It should also be acknowledge that while the differences between Marxists and anarchists 
have been real, it has been the case that too often in the past the disputes between them 
have generated more heat than light. A problem in many polemics is that each side tends to 
take partial tendencies of the other side and extrapolates them to be the whole, and in 
that sense misrepresents. A serious analysis has to go beyond the simplicities of black 
and white (black and red?) argumentation. At the same time, it is true that posing 
questions sharply generally implies a polemical tone, so we should not shrink back from 
polemic if this means that important questions will be glossed over or ignored.

My own position is pro-marxist, and is in many respects quite critical of anarchism. It is 
therefore imperative to note two things: One, that there are many positive things about 
anarchism which I leave unacknowledged, because I am attempting, in this, and the 
subsequent article ("Bakunin vs. Marx"), to criticize certain specific aspects of the 
total doctrine which I think greatly weaken it. I am not purporting to give a balanced 
evaluation of anarchism as a whole. Two: I am far more critical of the "Marxism" of most 
"Marxist-Leninists" than I am of anarchism. While I regard most anarchists as comrades in 
the libertarian movement, I consider the very expression "Marxist-Leninist" to be a 
contradiction in terms, and consider "Marxism-Leninism" to be an ideology that is 
diametrically opposed to the emancipation of the working classes.1

It is not possible to cover the whole anarchist/marxist debate adequately in one or two 
articles. What I propose to do here, and in the accompanying notes on Marx and Bakunin, is 
to concentrate on the most common and basic anarchist objections to Marxism, and to 
examine them briefly. These notes should be seen as just that - notes that make a few 
basic points. I hope that they will provoke a lively discussion that will make it possible 
to examine the questions raised, and others, in much greater detail.

The impetus for seeking a debate on Marxism and anarchism comes primarily from reading a 
number of recently published pieces on anarchism which all seem to display an astonishing 
misunderstanding and ignorance of Marx and what he wrote and did. (e.g. Bakunin on 
Anarchy, with the Preface by Paul Avrich and the Introduction by Sam Dolgoff; Mark 
Brothers' article on Anarchy in Open Road No. 4; the piece on Bakunin in Open Road No.2, 
and P. Murtaugh's article in this issue of The Red Menace.) All of these - and most 
anarchist writings - expend a great deal of effort in attacking something called 
"Marxism". In every case, the "Marxism" that is attacked has little or nothing to do with 
the theories of Karl Marx. Reading these polemics against a "Marxism" that exists mainly 
in the minds of those attacking it, one can only mutter the phrase Marx himself is said to 
have repeated often in his later years, only regarding the works of his 'followers': "If 
this is Marxism, than all I know is that I am not a Marxist."

If there is to be any dialogue between Marxists and anarchists, if the negative and 
positive aspects of the Marxian and anarchist projects are to be critically analyzed, then 
it is incumbent upon those who oppose Marxism, as well as those who support it or seek to 
revise or transcend it to at least know what they are talking about. Nothing is solved by 
setting up and attacking a straw-man Marxism.

And it is important to understand and know Marx not only because there are "libertarian 
Marxists" but because Marx is without dispute the central figure in the development of 
libertarianism and socialism. It is not possible to understand the development of any 
left-wing political movement or system of thought in the last century without knowing 
Marxism. It is not possible, in fact, to understand the development of any ideology in 
this century, or indeed, to understand the history of the last hundred years, without 
knowing something about Marxism. The political history of the twentieth century is to a 
very great extent a history of attempts to realize Marxism, attempts to defeat Marxism, 
attempts to go beyond or amend Marxism, attempts to develop alternatives to Marxism.

Anarchism is certainly no exception. It originally defined itself in opposition to 
Marxism, and continues to do so to the present day. Unfortunately, anarchists seem totally 
unaware - or unwilling to realize - that Marxism is not a monolith, that there are, and 
always have been, enormously different currents of thought calling themselves Marxist. 
Anarchist critiques invariably identify Marxism with Leninism, Leninism with Stalinism, 
Stalinism with Maoism, and all of them with Trotskyism as well. There is usually not a 
hint of guile in this remarkable bit of intellectual prestidigitation - your average 
anarchist simply thinks it is a universally accepted, established fact that all these 
political system are identical.2

This is not to say that it cannot be argued that all these political system are 
fundamentally the same, that their differences, no matter how violent, are secondary to 
certain essential features that all have in common. But the point is that it is necessary 
to argue the case, to marshal some evidence, to know a phenomenon before condemning it. 
One can't simply begin with the conclusion.

But the fact is that Marxism is not a monolith. Despite Murtaugh's uninformed assertion 
that "Libertarian Marxism is a rather recent development, as far as political theories and 
movements go", and despite the fact that the term "libertarian Marxism" is new - and 
unnecessary - the tradition goes back a long way. For example, Rosa Luxemburg - surely one 
of the central figures in any history of Marxism - was condemning Lenin's theories of the 
vanguard party and of centralized, hierarchical discipline three quarters of a century 
ago, in 1904. In 1918 - while many anarchists were rushing to join the Bolsheviks - she 
was criticizing the dictatorial methods of the Bolsheviks and warning of the miscarriage 
of the Russian Revolution. After her death there were other thinkers and movements that 
condemned Bolshevism as an authoritarian degeneration of Marxism: Anton Pannekoek, Karl 
Korsch, the Council Communists, the Frankfurt School, right up to the new left of the 
1960's and 1970's. And even within the Leninist tradition there were thinkers who made 
contributions that challenged the hold of the dominant interpretation and helped to 
nourish a libertarian Marxism; for example, Georg Lukacs, Antonio Gramsci, and Wihelm 
Reich. A number of libertarian currents emerged from the Trotskyist movement in the 1940's 
and 1950's. Any liberation movement that proclaims itself the issue of a virgin birth in 
the 1970's, or that acknowledges only one thin anarchist strand as 'true' libertarianism 
through the ages, while cutting itself off - whether because of dogma or because of 
ignorance - from all other contributing currents, only impoverishes itself. Yet anarchists 
writing on Marxism seem to deliberately and almost perversely shut their eyes and ears to 
anything except the dominant Leninist tradition, and so manage always to reconfirm their 
own prejudices about Marxism.

All this does not prove of course that the libertarian interpretation of Marx is the 
correct one. But it should be possible to agree on a basic analytical point: if there is 
doubt about what Marx stood for, then it is necessary to read Marx, not to take the words 
of either his enemies, or those who claim, justifiably or not, to be his followers. Once 
this is accepted, and only then, is it possible to begin an anarchist/marxist dialogue on 
a serious level.

My own attitude to Marx is not unequivocally favourable. There are in my view serious 
questions to be raised about aspects of Marx's thought. Marxism, like everything else, 
must be subjected to criticism, criticism that may lead to transcending Marx, but not, I 
think, to rejecting him. "Marxism is a point of departure for us, not our pre-determined 
destination. We accept Marx's dictum that our criticism must fear nothing, including its 
own results. Our debt to Marxism will be no less if we find that we have to go beyond it." 
The essential point, however, is that the Marxian project must be the heart of any 
libertarian politics. It may possible and therefore necessary to transcend Marx, but to 
transcend him it is first necessary to absorb him. Without Marx and some of the best of 
the "Marxists", it is not possible to create a libertarian praxis and a libertarian world.

Finally in judging Marx's work, it is necessary to keep in mind that his writings and 
actions span some 40 years as a revolutionary, that he often wrote letters and made notes 
that represent partial insights which he was not able to return to and expand, that many 
of his works were polemics against particular doctrines and are one-sided because of that. 
It would be a mistake, therefore, to take each sentence and each quotation in the corpus 
of his work as finished holy writ, or to expect that his work is wholly consistent or that 
he thought the implications of all of his theories through to the end. Marx's work is an 
uncompleted, uneven, but enormously fruitful and brilliant contribution that must be 
approached as he himself approached everything: critically.

At this point, it is necessary to confront one of anarchism's tragic flaws, one that has 
made it incapable of becoming a serious historical alternative: its strong tendency toward 
anti-intellectualism. With a very few exceptions (e.g. Kropotkin, Rocker, Bookchin) 
anarchism has failed to produce proponents interested in developing a rigorous analysis of 
capitalism, the state, bureaucracy, or authoritarianism. Consequently its opposition to 
these phenomena has tended to remain instinctive and emotional; whatever analyses it has 
produced have been eclectic, largely borrowed from Marxism, liberalism, and other sources, 
and rarely of serious intellectual quality. This is not an accidental failing - there has 
been no lack of intelligent anarchists. But anarchists, perhaps repelled by the 
cold-bloodedness of some 'official' Marxist intellectuals, perhaps sensing instinctively 
the germ of totalitarianism in any intellectual system that seeks to explain everything, 
have been consciously and often militantly opposed to intellectual endeavour as such. 
Their opposition has been not simply to particular analyses and theories, but to analyses 
and theory as such. Bakunin, for example, argued - in a manner reminiscent of the medieval 
Pope Gregory - that teaching workers theories would undermine their inherent revolutionary 
qualities. What happens when a movement's leading theorist is explicitly anti-intellectual?

The result for the anarchist movement have been crippling. Anarchism as a theory remains a 
patchwork of often conflicting insights that remain frustrating especially to critical 
sympathizers because the most fruitful threads rarely seem to be pursued. Most anarchist 
publications avoid any discussion of strategy, or any analysis of society as it is today, 
like the plague. (Even one of the best anarchist publications, The Open Road, remains 
essentially a cheer-leader for anything vaguely leftist or libertarian. People organizing 
unions and people organizing against unions receive equally uncritical coverage; 
pie-throwing and bomb-throwing are seen as equally valid activities, and no attempt is 
made to discuss the relative strategic merits of the one or the other in a given context.) 
Most anarchist publishing houses seem interested in nothing except (a) re-fighting the 
Spanish Civil War, (b) re-fighting Kronstadt and (c) trashing Marxist-Leninists yet one 
more time. Even these preoccupations, which have become routine as to make anarchism for 
the most part simply boring, are not pursued in such a way as to develop new insights 
relating to the history of capitalism, the revolutionary process, or Bolshevism, for example.

Rather, the same arguments are simply liturgically repeated. Rarely is there any serious 
political debate within the anarchist movement, while polemics against the bugbear of 
"Marxism" (as essential to anarchism as Satan is to the Church) are generally crippled by 
a principled refusal to find out anything about what is being attacked. Arguments are 
mostly carried on in terms of the vaguest generalities; quotations are never used because 
the works of the supposed enemy have never been read.

As a consequence of its anti-intellectualism, anarchism has never been able to develop its 
potential. A movement that disdains theory and uncritically worships action, anarchism 
remains a shaky edifice consisting essentially of various chunks of Marxist analysis 
underpinning a few inflexible tactical precepts. It is held together mainly by libertarian 
impulses - the best kind of impulses to have, to be sure - and by a fear of organization 
that is so great that it is virtually impossible for anarchists to every organize 
effectively on a long-term basis. This is truly a tragedy, for the libertarian movement 
cannot afford to have its members refusing to use their intellects in the battle to create 
a new world. As long as anarchism continues to promote anti-intellectualism, it is going 
nowhere.

1. On the other hand, I do not see all "Marxists-Leninists" as counter-revolutionaries, as 
many anarchists seem to do. Many (particularly Trotskyists) are sincere revolutionaries 
who do not understand the implications of the ideology they adhere to. The fact that 
"Marxism-Leninism" as an ideology is counter-revolutionary does not mean that every 
"Marxist-Leninist" is a counter-revolutionary, any more than the fact that Christianity is 
reactionary makes every individual Christian a reactionary. Nor are the political 
differences that divide the left always as absolute as they are made out to be. There are 
of necessity always gray areas, where, for example, anarchism and Marxism begin to 
converge, or Marxism and Leninism, or - yes - anarchism and Leninism. Life does not always 
lend itself to analysis by the categories 'them' and 'us', if for no other reason than 
that all of us have internalized at least some of the repressive baggage of the dominant 
society. All of us have something of the 'counter-revolutionary' in us.
2. For example, Mark Brothers in his article "Anarchy is liberty, not disorder" in Issue 4 
of The Open Road, uses the terms 'Marxism' and 'Marxism'Leninism' interchangeably, and is 
either unaware or doesn't think it worth mentioning that two of the three concepts he 
criticizes - the vanguard party and democratic centralism - are nowhere to be found in 
Marx, while the third, dictatorship of the proletariat, was given completely different 
meanings by Marx and the Leninists. Similarly, Murtaugh (The End of Dialectical 
Materialism: An Anarchist Reply to the Libertarian Marxists) knows so little about Marxism 
that he does not even know that neither Marx nor Engels ever even used the term 
"dialectical materialism,", which he blithely supposes "libertarian marxists" adhere to, 
and which he disposes of in four pages. (Dialectical materialism made its first appearance 
eight years after Marx died, courtesy of Plekanov.)

http://www.bangladeshasf.org/news/anarchism-vs-marxism-a-few-notes-on-an-old-theme/

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Message: 2





Brighton Proud Cabaret have paid a worker over £1,500 in underpaid back wages after being 
delivered a demand letter by Brighton SolFed. ---- The worker had been told that they 
would be paid at a rate of £8.50 per hour, but was only paid £7.58 per hour until the new 
minimum wage was introduced in April 2018, when the hourly rate was increased to £7.83. 
The contract issued to the worker by Proud Cabaret did not contain any information on 
rates of pay, which of course is a legal requirement. ---- The worker repeatedly raised 
this issue to management with no success. Tired of being fobbed off they contacted SolFed 
and after we delivered a demand letter the bosses decided to pay up! ---- As long-time 
followers of our activity may be aware, this is not the first time that Proud Cabaret has 
failed to pay its workers. In 2015, a worker who quit after being pressured to work whilst 
sick organised with Brighton SolFed to try and reclaim unpaid holiday entitlement and pay 
for their notice period. This campaign ended when Proud agreed to give back part of the 
money owed, which the worker decided to accept.

Having already had a taste of what it's like when their workers organise against them it 
is not surprising that Proud agreed to pay in full before our public campaign had even 
started. In an interesting coincidence, Proud decided to raise pay across the board and 
ensure all staff members had contracts shortly after receiving the demand letter from Solfed.

Our victories don't exist in isolation; each win stands on the shoulders of the win 
before, and reaches to the next worker seeking to improve their conditions. This is a huge 
victory and demonstrates the culture of solidarity SolFed has created in Brighton through 
consistent organising and consistent wins!

Trouble with your boss? Get in touch via email at brighton@solfed.org.uk

http://www.brightonsolfed.org.uk/brighton/proud-cabaret-pays-worker-after-solfed-get-involved

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Message: 3





On the 187th anniversary of the Nat Turner rebellion and the 47th anniversary of the 
assassination of George Jackson in his attempt to escape San Quentin prison, prisoners 
across the country have started a nationwide prison strike for the abolition of prison 
slavery. Utilizing labor strikes, hunger strikes, sit-ins, and boycotts, these prisoners 
stand in brave defiance of the carceral state and the white supremacist order that keeps 
them in bondage. The demands of the movement also include more rehabilitative programs, 
end to racial disparities in sentencing, and the end of racist laws specifically targeting 
Black and brown people. We fully endorse this strike and offer our support to prisoners 
and detainees in rebellion, including those who have already faced or will face further 
repression and retaliation for their organizing.

These are the national demands of  incarcerated people in federal, immigration, and state 
prisons:

1 Immediate improvements to the conditions of prisons and prison policies that recognize 
the humanity of imprisoned men and women.
2 An immediate end to prison slavery. All persons imprisoned in any place of detention 
under United States jurisdiction must be paid the prevailing wage in their state or 
territory for their labor.
3 The Prison Litigation Reform Act must be rescinded, allowing imprisoned humans a proper 
channel to address grievances and violations of their rights.
4 The Truth in Sentencing Act and the Sentencing Reform Act must be rescinded so that 
imprisoned humans have a possibility of rehabilitation and parole. No human shall be 
sentenced to Death by Incarceration or serve any sentence without the possibility of parole.
5 An immediate end to the racial overcharging, over-sentencing, and parole denials of 
Black and brown humans. Black humans shall no longer be denied parole because the victim 
of the crime was white, which is a particular problem in southern states.
6 An immediate end to racist gang enhancement laws targeting Black and brown humans.
7 No imprisoned human shall be denied access to rehabilitation programs at their place of 
detention because of their label as a violent offender.
8 State prisons must be funded specifically to offer more rehabilitation services.
9 Pell grants must be reinstated in all US states and territories.
10 The voting rights of all confined citizens serving prison sentences, pretrial 
detainees, and so-called "ex-felons" must be counted. Representation is demanded. All 
voices count.
In addition to these demands Black Rose/Rosa Negra adds:

1 An end to all forms of family separation and detention.
2 Access to quality health care products, especially including the essential reproductive 
healthcare products that are frequently denied to prisoners.
3 Prisoners in the US colony of Puerto Rico must not be separated even further from their 
families and communities by sending them to prisons in the mainland US. Prisoners there 
have threatened a strike over these proposals, if they do go on strike we support these 
actions as well.
4 Freedom for all political prisoners and prisoners of war, including prisoners of recent 
struggles like Joshua Williams and Red Fawn Fallis as well as long standing political 
prisoners like Russell Maroon Shoats, Jalil Muntaqim, Leonard Peltier, and many others.

http://blackrosefed.org/strike-against-prison-slavery

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Message: 4





Our 4th Reading group on Situationism and Crass was held on 21st August at Freedom 
bookshop where we discussed the following texts: Matthews: An Introduction to the 
Situationists, Debord: Decomposition: The Ultimate Stage of Bourgeois Thought, In: Report 
on the Construction of Situations, p.6, Guy Debord: Chapter 8 - Negation and Consumption 
Within Culture, In: Society of the Spectacle, p.68-77 and Cross: "There Is No Authority 
But Yourself ": The Individual and the Collective in British Anarcho-Punk. ---- 
Situationism ---- Ok, so the Situationist texts are incredibly difficult and have to be 
re-read a few times to make complete sense to them. The Matthews text was very useful to 
provide a summary and to explain the historical context and numerous references to Marx. A 
number of attendees admit to trying and failing to read Society of the Spectacle or have 
had to come back to it over the years.

Did this group really influence May '68? It's hard to imagine anyone but an 
arts/philosophy PhD taking this to heart. It appears to be one clique of artists writing 
to another clique rather than an easily understandable and actionable call to arms.

Beneath the difficult language there are some gems- Debord seems to have predicted the 
worst of consumerist culture when it was only at its very beginning. Linking to the Crass 
text he also predicts the co-option of subcultures and movements of resistance. He also is 
strongly critical of Leninism and Maoism which were fashionable at the time. The aim of 
the revolution is not just economic (how production is ordered or who controls it), it is 
cultural!

His ideas that the ruling class need maintain contradiction and confusion seems prescient- 
Putin does this by trying to manufacture criticism from both the left and right to create 
confusion and control the narrative from both angles. Bannon also seems to use the 
techniques discussed here- he is waging a culture war and is very good at distilling the 
ideas down to simple mantra people identify with (MAGA, the Muslims are coming etc). 
Perhaps someone needs to do this with Situationist ideas?

Crass

Remember when CND was massive and people didn't just accept nuclear weapons? Great times.

In our last discussion group we discussed anarchist economics- Crass seem to be a working 
example of this as they did their own production, distro etc all not for profit. This has 
created a big legacy in the music scene, especially outside the UK which seems to have 
resisted the co-option of subversion better (hello, Sex Pistols).

Did the focus on one subculture and one musical style limit the possibility for expansion? 
Subcultures can be exclusive and have been critiqued extensively, particularly with 
reference to USA anarchist groups (we're looking at you, early Crimthinc). There is also a 
lot of negativity/Nihilism in the lyrics- is this part of the art/performance or this just 
because under Thatcher the any future society seemed very far off and people needed to 
wake up to the reality before anything could be built?

A connection with the Situationists seems to be the ‘borrowing' of ideas from different 
philosophers and different camps. Perhaps this is why they never subscribed to one 
particular form of anarchism but took the best bits of individualist and communist currents.

The rave scene was more inclusive, more working class and had better drugs according to 
the two people who lived through the Punk and Rave decades!

Our reading group will continue on the third Tuesday of the month at Freedom Bookshop.

https://aflondon.wordpress.com/2018/08/22/reading-group-4-write-up/

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Message: 5






Seven years ago, the people of Cherán - a town of some 20,000 inhabitants in the highlands 
of Michoacán, one of the Mexican states worst-affected by the drug wars of the last decade 
- decided it was time to start over. And now, after they've kicked out all the criminals, 
cops, and politicians, things couldn't be going better. ---- The town had been terrorized 
for years by an organized crime syndicate devoted to illegally logging the surrounding 
forests. So after mobs drove out the criminals, they disarmed and drove out the corrupt 
cops who had protected them. Then they banned the politicians, along with the parties that 
put them in power. ---- In their place, the people of Cherán developed an autonomous 
system of self-rule based on horizontal, direct-democratic assemblies.

Now armed men and women - not police, but members of an autonomous militia - guard every 
entrance to the town, looking for strangers with contraband. And at the height of election 
season in Mexico, contraband means mostly political campaign ads: Guards confiscated 
thousands of banners and posters, from every major political party in Mexico, in just a 
few weeks. These ads, along with the political parties that produce them, are completely 
banned in Cherán, and have been since 2011, when residents overthrew their local 
government and started over.

While it remains economically dependent on the existing government, Cherán has achieved 
something unthinkable in Michoacán: a dramatic drop in murder rates, with rates for other 
serious crimes hovering at nearly zero.

For many in Mexico, especially in an election year marred by wanton political murders, 
Cherán stands as proof that, in the country's entrenched cycle of violence, the key 
ingredient is the state. Remove that ingredient, and it's possible to start from scratch.

Spurce: 
https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/gykaq9/a-town-in-mexico-overthrew-their-local-government-things-couldnt-be-going-better?utm_source=vicenewsfb

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Message: 6





91 YEARS FROM THE ASSOCIATION OF THE SARCO AND VANTSEI ANRACHE WORKS ---- THE FIGHT 
AGAINST A SOCIETY FOR FREEDOM, EQUALITY AND JUSTICE CONTINUES AND WILL WIN ---- "The only 
thing that works is memory. The collective memory. Also the smallest and most sad personal 
memory. I also have the suspicion that it is difficult to survive without one another, 
that no legends can be made without personal narratives. That there are no countries 
without fairy tales with fairies under their shadow. " ---- Taibo II ---- '' If all this 
had not happened, my life would have been an insignificant failed life. Now we know we did 
not fail: this was our course and our triumph. We have never hoped in our lives that we 
will be able to do so much about tolerance, justice, understanding people, what we have 
done now by mistake. Our words, our lives, our pain, have not been for nothing. The 
removal of our lives, the life of a good shoe and a honest fisherman, our last moments, 
belong to us. This agony is our triumph. "

Nicholas Saco

It may have been over 91 years since the execution of the two anarchists and some to 
consider it now belongs to the history museum. Their case, however, remains annoyingly 
timely, as many of its elements are very familiar (always respecting the proportions) and 
today. The indiscriminate and indiscriminate accusations, convictions and imprisonments 
without evidence, vengeance and revival of the regime are images of the current barbarity 
of power. A power that is guilty of persecution, manufactures "atomic terrorists," 
imprisons people either because of their political integration or because of their 
ideological positioning or even because of their friendly and close relations. A power 
that is shielded by the introduction of an exception regime for political and social 
militants. A regime established through the special laws of terrorists, which imposes 
special trials, special indictments, deprivation of basic rights, special cells and 
special treatment. Within this treaty, we see the setting up of a prosecution industry, 
the imposition of abusive sentences, militants being constantly dragged into the courts, 
and constantly being held hostage. We see entire villages being persecuted with 
terrorists, incursions into homes, making landings of MAT in areas transforming them into 
occupied areas. Political prisoners are deprived of their permits and are asked for a 
statement of repentance,

  '' I'm so sure I'm right on my part, so if you could run me twice, and if I could get 
back two more, I'd live the same life and do what I've done. ''

Bartolomeo Vanzetti

Still, the case of these two fighters is also a source of inspiration for the movement 
today. The attitude and action of the two anarchists throughout their lives, the grandiose 
movement of internationalist solidarity created to block their execution, the organization 
and fighting of the games of that period are useful tools and tools for shaping anarchist 
movement. A movement that, in the existing suffocating conditions shaped by the raging 
attack of sovereigns from the bottom, will use memory as a weapon, hoping to contribute to 
cultivating a collective consciousness that will restore hope. The hope and the prospect 
of the struggle against the "end of history" and the "no alternative" of the rulers.

On April 15, 1920, Massachusetts robbed a factory, during which a cashier and a guard were 
assassinated. Then two anarchists, Nicholas Saco, a shoemaker, and Bartolomeo Vanceti, a 
fishmonger, are initially arrested and accused of "dangerous radical activities" and then 
of murders.

Sako and Vanetsi were Italian immigrants to the US The two Italians were already known for 
their action before arriving in the US. as they had opposed the First World War. From the 
first moment they arrive at the "promised land" they are against the racist and xenophobic 
regime and against the ghettoization of immigrants in special zones.

Nine days before the robbery for which accused the Sacco and Vantseti arrested a friend 
and companion, who during interrogation "falls" from 14 the floor of the justice ministry.

In the period (1920-1927), which ran from their conviction to their execution, a grand 
movement of international solidarity was set up to suspend their execution. Mass 
demonstrations and clashes take place in a number of countries like America, France, 
Italy, Germany and Argentina. A characteristic feature of the situation is that on the day 
of their execution weapons are placed in Charlestown prison, while at the same time there 
are clashes with the dictatorial forces in the city center. Another indication of the 
militancy and dynamism of the solidarity movement is that the US Embassy in France is 
encircled by tanks to protect itself, while six protesters are murdered in Germany.

In 1925 two years before being executed, a Portuguese prisoner confessed that he was 
involved in the robbery at the factory and that Saco and Vanceseti did not participate. 
There are seven applications for a retrial and the seven are dismissed.

On August 23, 1927, these two immigrant workers were executed in the electric chair by the 
US state. for a robbery and a murder they never committed, with a loose and ruined 
indictment that had nothing to do with reality.

Besides, from the words ("Vansetti may not have committed the crime he is attributed to, 
but he is certainly his moral perpetrator, since he is an enemy of our existing 
institutions") Judge Webster Thayer, the reasons and the status for which these two people 
were tried and convicted. A message of example had to be sent in a climate of social and 
class struggle.

What has frightened the authoritarian and racist state of the United States is that Sako 
and Vancetech have in every way embodied the "inner enemy" and "internal danger". They 
embody the character of the foreigner, the immigrant, the "other", the pariah, the 
anarchist and the poor laborer. They were carriers of an "infectious" mentality and 
perception ("red threat" as it was then called by the US regime), which in its spread 
would continually challenge the power and power of the law, the institutions and the 
dominant ideology, of which the ruling class derives its status and legitimacy.

Immigrants, who have refused to accept the future that life has reserved for them in the 
"land of promise", have not accepted the racist and xenophobic practices of the United 
States. ('' I saw officials responsible for handling cats as animals, and they did not 
even have a good or compassionate reason to alleviate the heavy burden of the fear of the 
New Yorkers on the American coasts. land, erupted after their first contact with these 
harsh officials "). Workers with rich trade union action and daily struggles to claim 
their rights and anarchist fighters who believed in the existence of a different society 
and fought for the revolutionary overthrow of the existing system of oppression and 
exploitation.

Their execution did not take place because they committed a crime. They were carried out 
to exemplify anybody else "casting doubt on the existing generality with which it does not 
harmonize as much as it should." They were carried out with the aim of terrorizing and 
fearing anyone else struggling (or having any reason to do so) for the existence of a 
different society.

"I understood that in the name of God, the Law, the Fatherland, Freedom and the purest 
abstract concepts, the supreme human ideals, the most terrible crimes are executed and 
will continue to be done"

Bartolomeo Vanzetti

'' My son, remember: do not keep it all for yourself. Always take a step back, one step 
only, to help the weakest stand next to you.

The weaker who cry for help, the humiliated, the victims, these are your friends. Your 
friends and my friends, our comrades struggling. Yes, and sometimes they fall. They fall, 
like your father and his partner Bartolomeo fell.

They fought and fell yesterday to win the joy. For the freedom of all. In the fight, my 
son, there you will feel love. And in the fight you will be loved. "

Letter of Nicholas Sakos to his son.

91 years since the anarchist murder Sako and Vanetsi, their memory remains alive in the 
struggles against employers' indecency and terrorism, war, fascism, racism, modern 
totalitarianism and state repression.

91 years later, the struggle for social revolution, anarchy and libertarian communism 
continues and will be overcome.

anarchist group "dignified horse" / APO

August 22, 2018

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