Today's Topics:
1. Poland, ozzip.pl: If you do not like it, change the job
[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. France, Alternative Libertaire AL #290 - Eighty years ago -
1939: The last hours of Barcelona antifascist (fr, it,
pt)[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. Britain, afed.org.uk: LIBERTATIA BENEFIT ENGLAND TOUR STARTS
AND FINISHES SUCCESSFULLY IN JANUARY 2019
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. US, black rose fed: LIBERTARIAN SOCIALISM IN LATIN AMERICA:
A ROUNDTABLE INTERVIEW, PART II, ARGENTINA (ca)
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. awsm.nz enters its 10th year as a political organisation
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
6. Britain, anarchist communist group ACG: The only answer to
the shutdown is a strike (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Text prepared by the Angry Workers collective from Great Britain, created by people
employed in logistic centers and warehouses in London's Greenford and Park Royal
districts. ---- Although the conditions of our lives are different, something connects
employees around the world. In order to earn a wage that allows us to acquire means of
subsistence, we must sell our own time and energy to entrepreneurs. They have money,
buildings, machines and resources, we have nothing but our hands and the heads we sell. In
fact, we never ask why money and other things are only on one side, and those who do the
job have as much as the cat cried - or simply do not have anything. Everyone agrees and
often explains that it's a matter of luck or just bad luck. "The founding father of the
company had a brilliant idea" or "they had a nose for the stock exchange". In most cases,
money did not appear accidentally but as a result of violence. The capital belonging to
today's companies can be associated with the privatization of state assets, the work of
minors in factories, the trade of opium or slave trade and their exploitation on
plantations. Regardless of all this, the basic problem is that thanks to the seemingly
fair exchange of labor for the wages, most of the generated wealth goes into the hands of
business.
There is no such thing as honest pay
When we work on the assembly line, we execute orders or service computers, our pay does
not correspond to the value of what we have created, nor is it a share in the profits of
our company. This happens even if we work on a chord or get a bonus. The company acquires
our time, pay our strength and ability to work for pay. The wages, however, are enough for
our subsistence: food, rent, school supplies for children, etc. It is to keep us alive so
that we will return to work again. Wages sometimes rise, especially if there is a shortage
of employees or specific skills. They also grow thanks to workers' struggles. However,
companies tend to maximize wage reduction as a rule. By doing overtime, we may be able to
earn more for some time, but in general, in the long-term perspective, for 50 hours of
work, we will start earning as much as 40 hours in advance. The company will try to lower
the pay so that it covers only the basic costs of living - regardless of whether we work 8
or 12 hours.
The exploitation is the norm
Each company is exploiting. Why? Because it does not pay the whole of our business day. In
this way, the rest goes to the hands of our boss. How does it happend? The wage covers
maintenance costs, e.g. PLN 100 a day. The management forces us to work, for example, in
the production of cars. During a few hours, say 3, we produce a product worth 100 PLN, the
rest of the working day remains unpaid. What will remain after the payment of employees,
raw materials and machines is the company's profit. It is therefore interested in
extending the unpaid part of the business day. He can do it in two ways.
The easiest way to extend unpaid hours, forcing us to work longer. In the 19th century, a
twelve- and 14-hour working day was the norm. It was so common that workers were dying too
early and the army could not find enough recruits. More importantly, the employees
themselves had enough of this and started to fight for shorter work. In this way, they
reduced the length of the working day, unfortunately, twelve-hour changes again became a
norm in certain industries (construction, meat processing, logistics, gastronomy, etc.).
A better way to extend unpaid work is to increase work efficiency, for example by
introducing more machines. Increasing the number of machines reduces the cost of our
maintenance, we can produce more cars or food. Instead of 3 hours of work, 2 hours will be
enough to cover the costs of maintaining employees. Thanks to this, the company can take
over products manufactured during 6, not 5 hours of work. However, this situation has
three major consequences:
- the company has to spend more on machines than on employees, which ultimately limits profit;
- the company will try to reduce employment because productivity will increase;
- this will lead to unemployment resulting in lower wages, for which only basic means of
subsistence will be available.
Profit achieved through unpaid work is usually re-invested. Entrepreneurs allocate money
for new cars for the sale of cars, re-payment of rent and payroll. This time, employees
receive wages thanks to their own unpaid work done week, month or a year earlier. There is
nothing honest about it. We are paid for what we have created. The problem becomes even
more serious if we look at the whole of society. The work we do not only pays for our
salaries, but the entire estate of the company (buildings, raw materials, machines). It's
all made by employees. We are dealing here with a cycle of exploitation:
- we have to work for them because we do not have anything;
- we do not have anything, because wages are enough for food, renting a flat, etc .;
- all things necessary for production (machines, buildings, etc.) are controlled by
entrepreneurs, but they were created by employees.
Because they have products that we ourselves have created, from the moment we cross the
gates of "their" plants, they can tell us what to do. They can also slow us down. If we
try to take away what should be ours, that is if we question their property right, then
they ask the police and the courts for help. It is our work that builds their strength.
It is said that "the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer." It does
not have much to do with corruption or with greedy politicians, but it results from the
simple fact that we are forced to work for a wage.
Greedy entrepreneur?
Does this situation arise from the greed of entrepreneurs? Is it their addiction to luxury
and power? They certainly have a weakness for their palaces and limousines, but as
managing companies they have little choice. They must increase the exploitation of their
employees because they compete with other companies. You can survive on the market only by
making a profit from the sale of goods. How to do it? The company does not have a big
impact on the price of raw materials or rent. The main ways to reduce the production costs
of a sold product and increase profit are to reduce wages and increase labor productivity
by putting direct pressure on us or implementing new technology. In this way, the market
forces every entrepreneur to increase the exploitation of his employees. However, there is
also pressure from the employees in addition to market pressure.
Furious employees
When you look back, you can see that employees are not only victims in this game. In each
country there were fights for shortening the working day. Who would like to work 12 hours
a day? As a result, the managers began to force them to work harder, not longer. At that
time, many employees (eg tailors, weavers, blacksmiths) began to undermine the necessity
of having a boss at all. After all, they knew best how to make products. Breaking the
strength of skilled workers required the owners to spend more on machines that allow the
employment of unqualified workers (often women, children, immigrants). Single tools or a
small workshop can work thanks to several employees who are able to imagine life without a
boss. A large factory made up of a team of machines strengthened the position of the
owners. Someone has to gather all these employees and coordinate their work. If the boss
does not have enough strength to do it, he will always be helped by the state. The state
(prisons, correctional houses, police, infrastructure) has grown with the development of
large industrial companies.
Race to the bottom
Konkurencja na rynku i wzrost podatków wydawanych na coraz bardziej rozbudowana strukture
panstwa zmuszaja przedsiebiorców do zwiekszania wydajnosci. Dokonuja tego dzieki
wprowadzeniu nowej technologii, która ogranicza sile pracowników wykwalifikowanych.
Pracownicy, którzy walcza o skrócenie pracy i polepszenie standardu zycia,zmuszaja równiez
przedsiebiorców do zwiekszania nakladów na maszyny. Pracownicy pragna lepszego i
latwiejszego zycia i osiagaja to, zmuszajac przedsiebiorców do inwestowania w maszyny? Czy
wzrost wydajnosci nie zwieksza dostepu do tanich towarów?W dluzszej perspektywie sprawy
nie wygladaja tak dobrze. Do zwiekszania wydatków na maszyny konieczny jest wzrost zysków,
a do tego trzeba zwiekszac produkcje i ograniczyc zatrudnienie. Oznacza to, ze w obecnym
systemie, gdzie celem produkcji jest wzrost zysku,a nie zaspokojenie potrzeb spolecznych,
zwiekszenie wydajnosci ma negatywny wplyw na wiekszosc ludzi i na srodowisko naturalne.
In order to increase profits, machines are used that allow the employment of unqualified
workers instead of qualified ones. This process increases unemployment. Unemployment puts
pressure on employees, which means that they accept lower wages and longer working hours.
Balancing expenditure on machines is possible due to increased production. Employees are
subordinate to the production line and standards. Machines do not make our lives easier,
they increase our effort. The greatest profit is achieved when the machines are working
round the clock. The increase in profit not only destroys our lives through work. In such
realities nature is treated as a cheap resource serving the implementation of short-term
goals, therefore it is rotten and polluted (plastic in water, chemistry in food, smog).
In a shorter time, plants increase production, the market is flooded with more products.
Thus, competition between enterprises and between countries increases. Enterprises that do
not stand up to competition, go bankrupt and dismiss employees, which also increases
unemployment.
Crisis of overproduction breaks out regularly. When the supply is higher than the demand,
the investments do not give the required profit. People lose their jobs or close their
small businesses, which causes poverty on a massive scale. People are starving not because
the goods are not enough, but because there are too many of them! We see empty homes and
mountains of unsold products because the employees are too poor to buy them. We see
abandoned factories, and entrepreneurs do not want to use them because they do not bring
profits. Such a system is absurd - production for profit causes overproduction, which in
turn causes poverty.
There is an increase in social tension. Why do the poor have to be poor when there is
enough wealth around, and the factories are empty? Business and politicians have to blame
someone: unemployed, single mothers, migrants, other nations, strangers. Economic crises
also cause an increase in tension between countries that are trying to take over the
markets and access to cheap raw materials. Often, a war breaks out as a result of the
economic crisis. States create demand thanks to the development of the army. The rich are
safe anyway, because the poor are fighting on the battlefields. More and more raw
materials and human work are spent on reinforcement. War brings destruction, but also profits.
A crisis is a normal state of the economy in which the primary goal is to increase the
profit, in which the work people have no influence on what and how they produce.
This article was published in the 7th Workers Wild West magazine. Translation: Krzysztof Król
http://ozzip.pl/teksty/publicystyka/walki-pracownicze/item/2447-jakc-ci-sie-nie-podoba-zmien-prace
------------------------------
Message: 2
On January 26, 1939, Franco's troops invaded the city that had been the epicenter of the
Spanish Revolution. The remnants of the Republican army will now retreat to the French
border, protecting the exodus of civilians destined for misery and concentration camps.
Libertarian youth activist, Abel Paz (1921-2009) is then 17 years old. In his memoirs, he
tells the tragedy of the fall of the city, between fantasies of scorched earth and
save-who-can. ---- Barcelona was no longer part of the back ; it was now a second-line
position that was becoming more and more a front-line position. The bombardments followed
one another at such a rate that we no longer paid attention to it. We ate barely, we
hardly slept; everything was half done. The big question was whether we would apply the
scorched earth policy in Barcelona, or whether it would be delivered without fighting to
the enemy. Everything seemed to indicate that the Catalan capital would offer no
resistance. The meetings of the political organs followed each other in the hope of
finding a force, which in fact no longer existed. In the depths of ourselves, all of us,
and in particular the youth - our war-revolution was led by young people - we had the will
to resist, but it lacked the faith that would have led to such a decision.
The war had exhausted the revolutionary enthusiasm. Defeat had become unavoidable. I
believe that the last meeting of the Libertarian Movement [1]took place at Casa CNT-FAI on
January 15 in the afternoon. It was a rather informal meeting, that is, it had not been
called for by any committee. However, all the committees of the three branches of the
Libertarian Movement were there in full, as well as a large part of the libertarian
activists Barcelona. There was no agenda. The speeches followed each other without a
leading thread. García Oliver [2]strolled nervously to one side of the room, and, on the
other side, Diego Abad de Santillán [3]did the same. The important characters remained
silent during this meeting.[...]
After someone had indicated what we all knew, that Franco was almost at the gates of
Barcelona, Manuel Buenacasa [4]got up from his seat, and his small size did not stop him
from making a big intervention. He believed in what he said. In the manner of the
harangue, he proposed a general mobilization to defend Barcelona, even if he had to lose
his life. It was the revolutionary honor of proletarian Barcelona. There was a moment of
confusion among the assistants who exchanged glances, but that was all. Then silence came.
Augustin Roa, who represented the defense committee that the young libertarians of
Barcelona had just formed, and of which I was a member, addressed the audience to explain
what we thought at that moment: " The young libertarians have prepared a plan to blast
Barcelona. In this case, the workers have nothing to lose. The bourgeoisie will be the
only one to be affected since it will not be able to recover its factories. " Roa
detailed the consequences of such a proposal, but the faces of the assistance it clear
that all this found no echo.[...]
The intervention of Germinal de Sousa [5]focused on the proposals of Buenacasa and Roa ;
he was pessimistic about their effects on the course of events. The scorched earth policy
could have had a positive impact if it had been practiced months before ; in the present
circumstances, when enthusiasm was exhausted, it became useless. However, he added, one
had to be wary of exile.[...]The French bourgeoisie would not forgive us the bad times we
had passed. She would be cruel. Had not we tried and put into practice an unprecedented
social revolution in the modern history of the proletariat ?[...]«Remember the behavior of
the French bourgeoisie towards the Parisian Communards of 1871. No, do not make any
illusion: all the doors will close, and our French compañeros will be able to do nothing
to avoid it. It is in this context that the proposal of young libertarians makes sense,
and it is not me who will dissuade them ... "[...]
At the end of the meeting, after listening to the hallway comments, when night had already
fallen, Serra and I took leave of Roa and Ubeda head-still at the door of Casa
CNT-FAI.[...]As always, Barcelona was in the dark. There was not a single star in the sky.
It was cold and it was raining. At that time, it was dangerous to walk around Barcelona.
The SIM patrols [6]were relentlessly arresting the young men whom they suspected to be
fachos ; and when they fell on an anarchist, they stopped him with still more pleasure. On
our guard, Serra and I advanced with eyes wide open and pistol in hand. On arriving at the
Place du Clot, we breathed.
Our excitement grew with the passing days. Always from one side to another, from meeting
to meeting, control of time escaped us. The seats of the political parties and even the
local dependents of the Generalitat and the central government were under intense
preparations which clearly indicated that Barcelona would be abandoned without firing a
single shot. In mute, the safe-haven had begun.[...]
On 21 January, Francisco Martin, a comrade who was part of the local coordinating
committee of Barcelona, entered very early in the athenaeum room where I slept with my
friend Maruja. Very excited, he woke us with loud cries: the entrance of the fascists into
Barcelona was imminent, and it was necessary to think of the evacuation of the militants
of the JL. We did not have any means of transportation, and we had to find some. The
coordination committee had organized the evacuation of the compañeros still held in Modela
prison and in Montjuic castle. The liberation of the former had not been a problem. On the
other hand the SIM had strengthened the guard of the castle to prevent the exit of the
seconds.[...]Martin invited me to accompany him, because a meeting was to be held that
morning at the local federation of the JL[...]. A quick tour of the building showed me
that the same distressing spectacle was repeated in every room: piles of documents
destroyed by the fire, open drawers of tables, peeled binders, cabinets with doors open
and on the ground, piled up, bulky printed packages. A sad, scary spectacle was the
liquidation of the history of an era devoted to frenzied and uninterrupted action,
something like a Goodbye to life .
I returned to the meeting room as the discussion focused on the evacuation of compañeros
imprisoned in Montjuic and Modela prison. Groups had been formed, which first proposed to
release them by the use of force and then to pass them to France. As we were of no use,
Martin offered to accompany me to Casa CNT-FAI[...]. The street was almost deserted, and
the few passers-by hurried, looking from time to time at the sky where the planes bombing
the city could appear at any moment.
We followed Boters Street, then crossed the rubble strewn around the cathedral. At the
door of what had been the nerve center of anarchist activism, our Casa CNT-FAI, there
were, besides the guards who protected it, many compañeros came to learn about the
progress of the armies of Franco that we supposed very close to Barcelona. This was the
case, since they were already camping in Igualada and Vilafranca del Penedes.[...]
We made our way to the basement of the Casa, where we could call the " command post " of
the local coordination secretariat. There was there, acting as " general The secretary,
José Castillo, a fierce antimilitarist who had even refused to do his military service. He
guessed when we saw that we were hungry, and he pointed to a pot that contained the
remains of a stew cooked by them with ingredients from one did not know where. Indeed,
more than a stew, it was a kind of glue for posters. It was still hot, and we liquidated
it in the blink of an eye. While we swallowed this insipid mixture, the compañeros
agglutinated around Castillo commented on the extraordinary meeting of the Popular Front
convened the same day. As we learned later, our Secretary General Mariano R. Vázquez
[7]and the other " tenors " The components of this Front sang a song in chorus that
extolled the courage of our army and the will of the civilian population to resist the enemy.
After eating, we went to the 3 th floor to meet our compañeros of the Regional Committee
of JL. As everywhere we went, all was confusion and disorder ; the compromising papers
were being destroyed.[...]That night I slept on the spot, and that is where I lived the
bombings which followed one another in waves, this January 22nd, 1939. The situation was
terrifying. The bombing was so close that it was even useless to go down to the shelter of
the Casa.[...]
All the information that arrived was disastrous. The central government and the Generality
had been evacuated, and there was talk of their transfer to Girona to direct the
resistance there. But no one believed it: it was a headache, and it was about to become
reality in the facts. After declaring a state of emergency, the government instructed
General Juan Hernández Saravia to organize the defense of Barcelona or, failing that, to
set up a defense line by means of retired armies. We did not have time to breathe.
Bombings and alarms followed each other. The shelters were packed. Panic had become
widespread, but the desire to get out of this hell, whatever happened, was omnipresent.
Discouragement had also won the JL Regional Committee. At the door of the Casa CNT-FAI, it
was no longer groups but a crowd of people who hurried to find a way to abandon the city.[...]
January 24, at noon, I did not know what was happening in my neighborhood. I had tried
several times to phone the athenaeum, but without success.[...]I decided to leave Casa
CNT-FAI to find my neighborhood. The entrance to the building and its surroundings were
full of compañeras and compañeros waiting to be evacuated.[...]All the bars I found on my
way were closed. Trucks and cars were packed with people carrying suitcases that probably
contained the necessary minimum, or perhaps some valuables, the sale of which could yield
the money needed for survival. Most of the people I met were on foot, looking for a path
or road that would take them to the border or to any place to hide until the end of the
turmoil. Many compañeras and compañeros had settled in the athenaeum while waiting for a
vehicle.[...]
The next day - we were then January 25 - announced even sadder than the day before. It was
raining. The bombs fell, succeeding the howling sirens. The Francoist forces were now at
the height of Tibidabo. There was not even a hunk of bread to eat. Anxiety could be read
on all faces.
Jaime Tio, a comrade who worked in the railways, arrived in the middle of the afternoon
and announced that he had managed to grab a platform truck and fill up. According to him,
it was possible, by tightening, to evacuate all the people gathered in our local. Night
was falling when, on January 25th, protected by tarpaulins, we all settled on the platform
truck that started towards the unknown ...[...]
I think that this journey to misfortune, because this was our exodus, is unlike any other
event in history. Our exodus was not that of an army in rout, but that of a people who
preferred exile to ignominy[...]. A community of half a million people, of all ages and
sexes, having no other resource to face the unknown than its moral strength, was bound to
find a way to maintain its coherence in a form of religiosity. This kind of religiosity
which from the beginning, then for many years, underpins this human group is solidarity.
Abel Paz
[1] A plenum of October 1938 united, within the Spanish Libertarian Movement (MLE), the
trade union branch (CNT), the political branch (FAI) and the young branch (FIJL).
[2] Juan García Oliver (1901-1980), one of the most prominent figures of Spanish
anarcho-syndicalism, revolutionary pistolero during the " social war " of 1922-1923 ;
insurrectionist ; Minister of Justice in the anti-fascist government from November 1936 to
May 1937.
[3] Diego Abad de Santillán (1897-1983), activist anarcho-syndicalist active in Argentina
and Spain, self-taught intellectual, one of the libertarian communist theorists, adviser
to the Economy of the Generalitat of Catalonia from December 1936 to April 1937 .
[4] Manuel Buenacasa (1886-1964), a leading activist of the CNT and the FAI.
[5] Germinal de Sousa (1909-1968), one of the organizers of anarchism in Portugal, then a
refugee and active in Spain. He is in January 1939 Secretary of the Peninsular Committee
of the FAI.
[6] Military Information Service: counterintelligence units created in August 1937 by the
Republican State.
[7] Mariano Rodríguez Vázquez (1909-1939), general secretary of the CNT from November 1936
to his death in exile in France, in June 1939.
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Les-dernieres-heures-de-Barcelone-antifasciste
------------------------------
Message: 3
Earlier this month, the Anarchist Federation and friends hosted Greek comrades from the
Anarchist Political Organisation (member of our international, IFA) to talk about the
political situation Greek and to raise awareness of the destruction by fire, by
neo-fascists linked to local football firms, of the Libertatia social centre squat in
Thessaloniki (Northern Greece). The squat has been run as an anarchist centre for several
years and is now being rebuilt. Funds are being raised, with international solidarity, for
its resurrection. ---- The comrades arrived in London on 14th January 2019 and left on the
20th. Talks and gigs were held at various venues in London (DIY Space for London),
Manchester (Partisan),plus venues in Leeds and Exeter thanks to Red & Black Leeds and
Exeter A Party. More than 200 people came to the London gig supported by punk bands (
Eskorputas +Killdren + Romantik Dick + The Chain of Panic + Inner Terrestrials). Over
£1000 was raised to support the reconstruction effort. The London gig also raised funds
for legal cost of Russian antifascists imprisoned and tortured as part of a fit up aimed
at identify other individuals the state wishes to repress (see also rupression.com ).
Last Thursday (24th January), another anarchist squat in Thessaloniki was attacked by the
same fascists throwing petrol bombs. Bookmarks bookshop in London was visited yesterday
(Saturday 26th January by a person who was involved in an attempted attack on the
Bookmarks solidarity event in the summer of 2018. showing the need for continued vigilance
about the potential for right-wing attacks across Europe.
More background on AF site:
http://afed.org.uk/call-for-transnational-action-in-support-of-the-libertatia-squat-in-thessanoliki/
http://afed.org.uk/libertatia-benefit-england-tour-starts-and-finishes-successfully-in-january-2019/
------------------------------
Message: 4
Educational forum on anarchism held by ASL in Buenos Aires, Argentina. ---- In the United
States, growing segments of the population are undergoing a period of profound
politicization and polarization. Political elites are struggling to maintain control as
increasing numbers of people seek out alternatives on the left and the right. In the wake
of the 2016 presidential election, political organizations on the left have grown
significantly, most notably expressed in the explosive growth of the Democratic Socialists
of America (DSA). Meanwhile, the Trump administration has joined other far-right
governments emerging around the globe, emboldening fascist forces in the streets. These
developments have sparked widespread debate on the nature of socialism and its distinct
flavors within and outside the US.
Among the various branches within the broad socialist tradition, libertarian socialism is
possibly the least understood. For many people in the US, libertarian socialism sounds
like a contradiction in terms. The corrosive influence of the Cold War has distorted our
understanding of socialism, while the explicit hijacking of the term "libertarian" by
right-wing forces has stripped it of its roots within the socialist-communist camp.
Outside the exceptional case of the US, libertarianism is widely understood to be
synonymous with anarchism or anti-state socialism. In Latin America in particular,
libertarian socialists have played a critical role in popular struggles across the region,
from mass student movements to the recent wave of feminist struggles. To expand and enrich
the current debate on socialism in the US, we spoke with several militants from political
organizations in the tradition of libertarian socialism in Brazil, Argentina, and Chile,
exploring the history, theory and practice of libertarian socialism.
Due to the length of responses, we will be publishing this roundtable interview in
installments (Part 1 here, in Spanish and in English). For Part 2, we spoke with militants
in Acción Socialista Libertaria / Libertarian Socialist Action from Argentina.
We also wanted to thank everyone who contributed to our Building Bridges of International
Solidarity Fundraiser which made this interview series possible.
-Introduction, interview and translation by Enrique Guerrero-López
Enrique Guerrero-López (EGL): Can you introduce yourself, tell us the name of your
organization, and give a short summary of its origins and your main work?
ASL: We are ASL (Acción Socialista Libertaria/Libertarian Socialist Action). We have
militant nuclei in La Plata (Buenos Aires), Greater Buenos Aires Sur, Greater Buenos Aires
West, Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, and Cordoba.
Our formal introduction to the public was in November 2015, although we had been meeting,
debating, and planning shared militancy since at least 2012. We could say that the
original nucleus of ASL was the confluence of comrades with prior political and social
militancy.[1]Some of that came from the political experience of OSL (Organización
Socialista Libertaria/Libertarian Socialist Organization) during the ‘90s and until
2009.[It also came from:]
Other anarchists with piquetera militancy in the MTD (Movimiento de Trabajadores
Desocupados/Movement of Unemployed Workers) May 1st and the Movement of Workers Norberto
Salto, which, together with other movements, make up the FOL (Frente de Organizaciónes en
Lucha/Front of Organizations in Struggle) in 2006.[2]
A nucleus of comrades with militancy in the Colectivo Desde el Pié/From the Foot
Collective (a radical interdisciplinary research collective based in the physical and
natural sciences). Others who worked in the Red Libertario (Libertarian Network) in Buenos
Aires as well as in feminist spaces. With this primary nucleus, we combined the different
experiences and trajectories to build common agreements and politics.
We think that the construction of a Libertarian Political Organization with roots in, and
development of its militancy within, the class struggle should be something permanent and
continuous, which is a patient task of developing organizations, programs, strategies, and
novel tactics, but with a strong sense of belonging to the central nuclei of anarchism. In
this sense, we perceive ourselves as an Organization still under construction and with
varying degrees of popular insertion.[3]
We have militants active in various popular struggles- in territorial, environmental,
feminist, union, student, and human rights- in addition to developing propaganda,
dissemination, and training activities.
EGL: What are the roots of libertarian socialism in South America?
ASL: In South America, anarchism established itself as a current in the labor and popular
movements early and solidly. Especially in the large cities with access to the ports, the
great arrival of European immigrants brought in their saddlebags an experience of
organization and struggle. They arrived as protagonists of the revolts of 1848, persecuted
communards of Paris, and members of sections of the First International.
In Argentina, the arrival of anarchist militancy is particularly important. We already see
around 1858 the formation of the first mutual aid societies and, by the end of 1870, the
first unions, newspapers, and libertarian groups were established.
They found a very unequal, unjust, and conflict-ridden society. "Success," then, was not
so much based on the capacity of those "coming," but on what was already here. A
libertarian socialist current would become, in Argentina, broadly majoritarian, in the
left and in the bosom of the labor movement until 1930, with emblematic organizations such
as FORA (Federación Obrera Regional Argentina/Federation of Argentine Regional Workers).
Until then, anarchist and worker militancy were fused in the same organizations.
Repression and economic changes on the one hand- and the lack of actual
political-theoretical updating and the appearance of new political actors (the Communist
Party, Peronism, etc.) on the other- led libertarian socialism to a crisis of great
proportions. In this context, specifically political organizations emerge within
anarchism. The ALA (Alianza Libertaria Argentina) between 1923 and 1932; the Spartacus
Labor Alliance between 1935 and 1940; the FACA/FLA (Anarcho-Communist Federation of
Argentina) between 1932 and the 1950s; and then, under the name of the Libertarian
Federation of Argentina, surviving to the present; and the Libertarian Resistance between
1969 and 1978 are examples that we see as antecedents in our country.
They theorized as political organizations with different spaces of social insertion-
worker, student, peasant, and neighborhood- assuming the loss of libertarian hegemony from
the past and trying to adjust their tactics and their propaganda to re-develop a solid
libertarian current within the field of popular struggle.
"Our hypothesis on the development of the experience of libertarian socialism in the field
of popular struggle is to be able to construct a mass political alternative that
challenges the delegative, authoritarian, vertical, and patriarchal representative forms."
In that sense, we take three central and transversal axes of our current as distinctive
elements: classist, feminist, and libertarian practice.
EGL: What differentiates libertarian socialism from other branches of socialism?
ASL: We like to define ourselves as part of the revolutionary left, as a libertarian
current within it with its particularities and similarities.
Our hypothesis on the development of the experience of libertarian socialism in the field
of popular struggle is to be able to construct a mass political alternative that
challenges the delegative, authoritarian, vertical, and patriarchal representative forms.
In that sense, we take three central and transversal axes of our current as distinctive
elements: classist, feminist, and libertarian practice.[4, 5]Our base-building tries to
develop disruptive and democratic elements, tries to prioritize consciousness instead of
disputes over the mere formal direction of popular organizations. Another important
element is the pedagogical notion of direct action on the path of building a Direct Power
of the People, enhancing the political practice of our class.
A third vector is to develop an integral anti-patriarchal politics that cuts across all
the experiences of the masses, beyond the specific tasks of the women's and queer movement
itself- the struggle for legal abortion, self-defense against femicide, etc. In addition,
the questioning of the notion of bourgeois democracy as a space for resolution or
improvement of the living conditions of our class seems central to us- and instead trying
to develop experiences of direct, democratic, and bottom-up management. In that sense, we
try to develop a questioning of the notions of the State as a site of struggle and of the
electoral route as a "unique" space of specifically political action.
EGL: What role does political organization play within social movements and how does that
fit into your vision of libertarian socialist politics?
ASL: There are different visions on the left regarding the intervention of political
organizations in social movements.
Even within militant anarchism (setting aside individualists, or those who espouse more
"countercultural" aspects), we could say that there are at least three positions on the
issue: those who see the "libertarian political group" as a space solely for propaganda or
diffusion and where agreements are lax and there is almost no intervention in social
movements; those who do not see the need to develop a strictly political space and combine
common political-social aspects in grassroots militancy; and, finally, a current like ours
that sees dual organizationalism as central: the political and the social.
Our vision of the Libertarian Political Organization tries to take lessons from the
historical experiences that we pointed out previously, also incorporating the experience
of diverse organizations within so-called "Latin American especifismo," such as the FAU
(Uruguayan Anarchist Federation) since the ‘60s or the OSL (Socialist Organization
Libertaria) in Argentina in the ‘90s and 2000s. Also, the experience of
the[platformist]Russian exiles of Dielo Truda, with Makhno and Archinoff as visible heads,
who proposed a General Union of the Anarchists and an Organizational Platform.
Considering our relationship with social organizations, we consider our political
organization as an application of the coordination of our popular militancy, of the
development of libertarian militants, and of the strategic debate of our specific tasks,
considering ourselves as just a nucleus of a broader construction in development:
Coordination of popular militancy as a pedagogical and dynamic space of our popular
insertion- advocating political independence of grassroots organizations, but working to
enhance all that is classist, feminist, and libertarian in its midst. Promoting the
defense of popular rights and freedoms and, at the same time, prefiguring in concrete and
tangible practices the society for which we are fighting. Defining common tactics and
strategies of the different militancies and coordinating our militancy in the sense of
developing People's Direct Power as a tool of rupture with the current capitalist,
patriarchal, and state order.
Development of libertarian militants: We understand this as something dynamic and with
diverse angles- political practice with certain values and feelings; theoretical training
through debates, readings, and workshops; the range of our responsibilities in political
and social organizations; debates with other political currents; the production of
propaganda and the dissemination of materials, etc.
Strategic debate of our specific tasks: We don't see this as separate from the
characteristic levels of development within the social organizations where we participate
or where we build. Objectives such as the self-activity of the masses, self-government of
the workers, or class independence are not formal or rhetorical questions. We must link
them to the work of social movements today.
In that sense, we see Political Organization as a push, an encouragement, a support for
the autonomous development of popular movements- with more responsibilities and no
privileges- and acting, in certain moments of withdrawal, as a rearguard that safeguards
the objectives of radical transformation.
EGL: In the US, there is widespread debate over electoral politics on the left. How do
libertarian socialists in South America relate to electoral politics?
ASL: Historically, the most important organizations and political currents of the left in
Argentina have participated electorally, from the old Socialist Party since the end of the
19th century to the Communist Party since the ‘30s of the last century. Perhaps the
exception has been the PRT (Workers' Revolutionary Party) in the ‘70s, an important
formation from Trotskyism and Guevarism that developed the armed struggle and did not
participate electorally in its boom moment.
Since the return of democracy in 1983, the most important anti-capitalist left
organizations in Argentina have been those of Trotskyism. All of them have developed,
during more than thirty years, a sustained policy of electoral intervention. Sometimes as
a forum for debate, at other times as propaganda, and, since the formation of the FIT
(Left and Workers' Front), an alliance between various leftist groups, they have had small
"electoral successes," amounting to around 3-5% of the national electorate, winning
national and provincial deputies and references to certain "tribunes of the people."
Anarchism and its organizations in Argentina have never developed sectors that have
participated electorally in bourgeois democracy, although, in recent years, there has been
a paradox with respect to our framework of alliances. Sectors with which we share social
militancy, tactical agreements of intervention, or even areas of political coordination
have progressively chosen to start participating in different electoral campaigns. These
include some in the aforementioned FIT and others in center-left or allied formations of
sectors of Kirchnerism. We even find bands of organizations that adopt these tactics with
sustained sympathies toward our current or even coming from anarchism.
This forced us to debate with them, more from the tactical and political conjuncture,
without falling into closed positions and abstract abstentionism.
We can see three central debates here. On the one hand, the electoral issue is seen as a
possible "leap to politics," an outgrowth and a response to overcome corporatism and trade
unionism from social militancy. Given this, our position is that the need for that "leap"
is correct, but that circumscribing political intervention to electoral intervention
discounts politics, puts it in the enemy's arena, with the tactics of the class enemy and
its instruments. We continue to maintain that bourgeois democracy is the dictatorship of
the bourgeoisie, an instrument of consensus for capitalist and patriarchal exploitation.
We are interested in developing political campaigns for local and national intervention,
popular proposals, etc., even with the presentation of bills, as was the case of the Law
of Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy, where broad sectors developed from below, and
democratically and nationally, a great mass campaign.
The other aspect is our questioning of bourgeois democracy and the need to articulate an
Extra-Parliamentary Political Alternative that serves as a reference point for social
movements in struggle, the women's movement and dissidence, the classist currents among
the workers' and students' movement, etc., and a political coordination with an agenda of
intervention within different currents of the revolutionary, libertarian, and autonomous
left.[6]We cannot develop a radical and political critique of the instruments of consensus
of the bourgeoisie if we accept their game outright.
Finally, our tactical criticism of electoral intervention is analyzed in light of the
political, militant, and economic resources that are destined for electoral campaigns by
sister organizations. What will result, sooner rather than later, will be carelessness or
an instrumentalist appreciation of grassroots militancy and social organization - a
conservativization of bold or disruptive methods of political intervention, especially by
those that use direct action as a method of intervention.
EGL: Recently there's been a wave of feminist struggles in South America, particularly in
Argentina and Chile, including school occupations and mass demonstrations for reproductive
rights. How have libertarian socialists participated in these struggles and how does
feminism inform your overall theory and practice?
TASL: It's interesting to trace the historical background of the feminist movement in the
region to analyze the fundamental libertarian influence, from the experience of the
newspaper La voz de la Mujer, initiated by the anarcha-feminist Virginia Bolten, to the
formation of Free Women in the ‘80s in Buenos Aires or the first "Women's Commissions"
with a strong intervention by our anarchist comrades in the piqueteros movements in the
late ‘90s to the present.
Throughout this stage we have actively participated, even with our modest forces. We have
done it in the day-to-day and, of course, in the streets, in those multitudinous and
historic days of struggle: in the demonstrations of Ni Una Menos, and in the work
stoppages of women, on March 8th and November 25th, as well as in the days of encampment
and direct action in the National Congress to approve the law for voluntary interruption
of pregnancy.
But also, daily intervening in several specific organizations: in pre- and post-abortion
popular councils, in the National Campaign against Violence against Women; in the Campaign
for the Right to Legal, Safe and Free Abortion; in the National Meetings of Women, now
renamed Plurinational Encounter of Women, Lesbians, Transvestites, and Trans[People]; in
specific feminist organizations and in the various commissions and areas of popular
organizations where we are active.
From the point of particular political intervention, we're initiating a Libertarian
Feminist Assembly together with comrades from other libertarian organizations and
anarchist militants in unions, social movements, and feminist struggles, as well as
intellectuals and students. The idea is to think about our practice, to come to an
agreement on transversal policies of intervention, and to draw up a line to act from our
point of view in the current conjuncture.
In that sense, as ASL, we have edited a document to contribute to a Strategic Definition
of Libertarian Feminism. In it, we characterize the women's movement and dissidence as
clearly the most politically dynamic sector of the working class these days, as it
questions not only the patriarchal and capitalist oppressions within personal and daily
relationships, but also the institutions of the State, and even within social organizations.
EGL: In South America, many libertarian socialists have put forward a theory and practice
of building "popular power." What is popular power and what forms has it taken in practice?
ASL: Like the majority of left militants with social insertion in Latin America,
libertarian socialism also deals with the construction of Popular Power. We have tried to
polemicize the term in a booklet that tries to systematize our positions on the matter
since, within that wide concept, you can see traces of the most varied currents and
politics. Some of them enrich and others, in our humble understanding, confuse.
For ASL, the construction of Popular Power is a complex, permanent, and contested
strategy. Given the multiplicity of meanings that have been given, for a while now, we
began to define this strategy as "Direct Power of the People," since it seems to us that
it is much closer to a libertarian vision of its construction.
We say that the construction of Direct Power of the People (DPP) is complex, because it
tries to find the tools and seeds of liberating practices in the objective conditions in
which we develop our militancy; permanent, because we don't think of development in
stagnant stages or that every political moment is the same for the development of the DPP;
and contested, because it tries to fight against the vertical, patriarchal, and liberal
senses in political and mass construction.
We think that the development of the DPP must go hand-in-hand with experience, with a
reading of the moment and of the forces that we, as a class, have. Disagreeing as much
with the "escape from power" as with the "taking of power," we consider the DPP strategy
as building a power from the oppressed sectors and from the working people with which to
materially prefigure that libertarian socialism, from below and without the State or
Patriarchy, that we want to build.
In the current conjuncture throughout the region, we are going through a stage of DPP that
relies more on Resistance and Organization than on significant advances.
The need to defend the historical gains of our class and the movement of women and sexual
dissidents becomes central at this stage. Therefore, we promote unitary organization from
below, in the trade unions and political-union organizations that the masses recognize as
legitimate for their defense: unions, social and protest organizations, student centers,
neighborhood associations, and feminist associations and councils.
On the other hand, the debate about the questioning of bourgeois democracy as the
"natural" political space for our interventions seems central to us; trying to develop and
promote local instances of democracy and direct action: campaigns, multisectoral
coordinators, breaking with corporatism, etc.
Here, we see experimentation in the management of resources wrested from the struggle in
the territorial sphere as fundamental, the possibility of anti-bureaucratic efforts in
certain Delegate Bodies or internal union boards to defend conquests, and class
solidarity. Believing in the practice of our forces, we are demonstrating that no crisis
can be resolved by those who generated it: the State and the bosses.
Special thanks to Mackenzie Rae who provided copy editing for this article.
For the first part in this series, "Libertarian Socialism in South America: A Roundtable
Interview, Part I, Chile," Part III is coming soon.
For additional reading we recommend the following piece by a Black Rose/Rosa Negra member
"Socialism Will Be Free, Or It Will Not Be At All! - An Introduction to Libertarian
Socialism" and our strategy and analysis piece "Popular Power In a Time of Reaction:
Strategy for Social Struggle."
Notes
1. In Latin American politics, "militancy" refers to being a militant, or dedicated
member, of a group or movement. "Political militancy" refers to being a militant in a left
political organization while "social militancy" refers to being an active member in a
social movement organization. For more on this, see "The Problems Posed by the Concrete
Class Struggle and Popular Organization."
2. The piquetera or "picketers" movement is a movement of the unemployed in Argentina that
emerged out of the economic crisis of the 1990s and 2000s and often uses road and highway
blockades to press their demands. The MTD (Movimiento de Trabajadores Desocupados/Movement
of Unemployed Workers) is the organized form of the piquetera movement while FOL (Frente
de Organizaciónes en Lucha/Front of Organizations in Struggle) is a coalition of
neighborhood based piquetera groups in Buenos Aires that anarchist political forces are
active within.
3. Popular insertion, equivalent to the term "social insertion," refers to a strategic and
organized presence by anarchists within social movements.
4. For a substantive elaboration on transversal politics, see Bree Busk's "A Feminist
Movement to End Capitalism, Pt. 1."
5. In US liberal discourse, the words "classism" and "classist" have typically been
associated with discrimination against individual working-class people. Here, these terms
refer to class-struggle anarchist politics. For a thorough critique of US liberal
"classism" discourse, we recommend Gayge Operaista's piece "Radical Queers and Class
Struggle."
6. Romina Akemi and Bree Busk have defined "sexual dissidence" in "Breaking the Waves:
Challenging the Liberal Tendency within Anarchist Feminism" and "A Feminist Movement to
End Capitalism, Pt. 1."
http://blackrosefed.org/libertarian-socialism-south-america-argentina-p2/
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Message: 5
As AWSM enters its 10th year as a political organisation we are keen to continue a focus
on getting our message out there to the public at large. A lot of people don't know what
we are about, so we want to raise the profile of our brand of politics and of course our
group in particular. ---- One way of doing this we have used recently is the ‘old school'
one of postering. Most people we've encountered have just been curious about it, some
indifferent, a few sympathetic and some in need of spelling and political lessons have
been hostile. That's to be expected, though we naturally hope to increase the number of
those who are sympathetic over time. ---- If you are keen to help us spread our message
either by offering services such as graphic design skills or by doing some postering
yourself, please get in touch. We'd be happy to hear from you.
http://awsm.nz/2019/01/25/post-er/
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Message: 6
President Trump's ongoing standoff with the Democrats over funding of his Wall along the
Mexican border resulted in a government shutdown with 800,000 public employees not
receiving wages since December 22nd. Workers were forced to live on credit in the meantime
with increasing stress as to how they were meant to buy food and pay bills. In the
meantime 500,000 of these workers were meant to turn up to work whilst not getting paid!
---- Workers responded by calling in sick or quitting their jobs. In the case of coast
guards, not only pay but federal housing subsidies to finance their expensive coastal
housing were stopped. Workers relied not just on credit but on food pantries (food banks)
to see them through but this has impacted heavily on these food pantries. In addition,
many restaurants and small businesses who rely on government employees for their
clientele, have been seriously hit by the shutdown. Contractors, outsourced workers who
work for the various federal services, were also hit by the shutdown.
Native American tribes receive federal funding for healthcare and food negotiated in a
deal many years ago in return for the giving of tribal lands. Tribes are now having to
rely on their own resources whilst funding is halted. Aid to farmers was also stopped.
In reply, public employees- at airports, museums, galleries, parks, food safety etc must
seriously think about taking strike action to end any further shutdown. In fact the idea
of a general strike was already being discussed on both social media and in the press. The
public employees unions, with strong links to the Democrats, have taken some token actions
against the shutdown, but counselled against go-slows, work-to-rules, and strikes.
Now Trump has caved in over the shutdown. However the respite is only for three weeks as
Trump has tweeted "I wish people would read or listen to my words on the Border Wall. This
was in no way a concession. It was taking care of millions of people who were getting
badly hurt by the Shutdown with the understanding that in 21 days, if no deal is done,
it's off to the races!"
Soon public employees will face a stark choice if the shutdown returns, either hand in
their notices, or take action on the job, up to and including strike action. This is
something that both Republican and Democrat politicians dread.
https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2019/01/27/the-only-answer-to-the-shutdown-is-a-strike/
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