Anarchic update news all over the world - 24.03.2019

Today's Topics:

   
1.  senin medyan: Anarchist Prisoners Free in Azerbaijan (tr)
      [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  anarkismo.net: Statement on Mass Shooting by AWSM
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  France, Alternative Libertaire AL - Aperitif debate, Fight
      against climate change: what strategy ? by AL Grand-Paris-Sud
      (fr, it, pt)[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
4.  anarkismo.net: Mass Shooting Candlelight Vigil by AWSM
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
5.  France, Alternative Libertaire AL #292 - Peasant
      confederation: Against technological illusions ... and
      antispecies (fr, it, pt)[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
6.  anarkismo.net: Surviving Zimbabwe: An anarchist critique by
      Leroy Maisiri - ZACF (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
7.  anarkismo.net: Anarchy and Communism by Carlo Kayerro
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
8.  Greece, Political statement of the 3rd Congress of the
      Anarchist Political Organization (A.P.O.) (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1





In Azerbaijan today, the anarchist prisoners Bayram Mammadov and Giyas Ibrahimov gained 
their freedom.
Bayram and Giyas, who had been in prison since May 10, 2016, surprised the father of 
President Ilham Aliyev, the birthday of former President Heydar Aliyev, celebrated as the 
Feast of Feast by the state, and the father of Aliyev in order to protest the injustices 
of the elites ruled the country. wrote anarchist slogans on the monument in the center.
They were subsequently arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison under false pretexts.

https://seninmedyan.org/2019/03/16/azerbaycanda-anarsist-tutsaklar-serbest/

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Message: 2





Though full details have yet to be revealed, it is clear there have been multiple 
fatalities and serious injuries due to a mass shooting at two mosques in Christchurch 
today. ---- Though full details have yet to be revealed, it is clear there have been 
multiple fatalities and serious injuries due to a mass shooting at two mosques in 
Christchurch today. ---- The Aotearoa Workers Solidarity Movement (AWSM) expresses sincere 
and heartfelt feelings of commiseration for the victims and their families and stand in 
support of them against the perpetrators, who are believed to be have been motivated by 
fascist and neo-Nazi ideology. ---- An Injury to One Is An Injury to All! ---- No Pasaran!
Related Link: http://awsm.nz/2019/03/15/statement-on-mass-shooting/
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31333

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Message: 3





While climate change due to capitalism is accelerating and becoming more and more 
sensitive, mobilization is also accelerating. But the forms and the speeches vary.
 From the smooth talk of Alternatiba to the social, revolutionary and libertarian ecology, 
from supporters of Murray Bookchin, through the petition " The business of the century ", 
the climate strike, or the parliamentarism of EELV or the IF, what strategy to adopt to 
stop running into the wall ?
Alternative Libertaire Grand Paris-Sud invites you to debate on March 28, from 19:30 to 
Kaf'Conç, 114 rue Tolbiac (M ° Tolbiac or Olympiades).
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Lutte-contre-le-dereglement-climatique-quelle-strategie

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Message: 4





A member of Aotearoa Workers Solidarity Movement (AWSM) attended a candlelight vigil for 
victims of the mass shooting in Christchurch. ---- At 7pm tonight (16/3/19), a member of 
AWSM, as well as representatives of other political, religious and ethnic groupings, 
attended a one hour candlelight vigil in Rotorua in the central North Island, for the 
victims of the fascist terrorist incident in Christchurch. ---- Approximately 500 people 
from the local community gathered for the vigil at the grounds of the marae/meeting place 
of the Ngati Whakaue tribe in the village of Ohinemutu near the shores of Lake Rotorua. 
---- A series of rostered speakers gave expressions of aroha/love and solidarity for the 
victims, which was followed by an open mic. This included impromptu waiata/songs and 
speeches. A number of the people who took advantage of the latter and shared their 
korero/speeches, were from ethnic minority and religious groupings including Muslim, Sikh, 
Hindu and Christians as well as local rangatahi/youth of various ages.

The proceedings took place in an appropriate atmosphere of both solemnity and grieving for 
the dead and injured, though this was marred at times by an unreflective ‘Little Kiwi' 
nationalistic exceptionalism. In the days to come it is hoped this aspect of any events 
disappears or at the very least is greatly weakened in preference for an acceptance that 
Aotearoa is really no different to anywhere else on the planet in terms of suffering from 
and perpetrating the same social and political pathologies experienced elsewhere.

Related Link: http://awsm.nz/2019/03/16/mass-shooting-candlelight-vigil/

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31334

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Message: 5





After the professional elections, the Confédération paysanne holds a conference on 17 and 
18 April in Tours. The peasant agriculture it defends is caught between two fires: on the 
one hand a pressure towards industrialization ; on the other, an environmentalist / vegan 
movement that wants to eliminate an entire section of agriculture. Will the union find the 
right answers to defend a profession that still makes sense ? ---- The elections to 
chambers of agriculture, closed on January 31, revealed a slight increase in the peasant 
Confederation in a large number of departments. It lost the management of two chambers - 
including one in co-management with the Rural Coordination - and won two others: Mayotte 
and Loire-Atlantique. The operation was generally positive since the union put an end to a 
steady fall in its results.

For the rest, it is the status quo in the balance of power within agricultural unionism 
(see box). This situation questions. Many sectors suffer from deregulation and other free 
trade agreements. Small and medium farms are not defended at the national level by an 
FNSEA whose small arrangements between friends and power struggles are systematic.

Elections to the Chambers of Agriculture: the Conf 'is maintained

College Farm Operators                          2013    2019
Participation                                   54.3%   46.4%
FNSEA, JA and relatives (productivist right)    55.57%  55.18%
Rural coordination (conservative right)  21.12%  20.66%
Farming Confederation (left, for a "
peasant agriculture ") and related               19.74%  20.04%
Modef (close to PCF)                              2.04%    1.9%
Various                                   1.53%    2.22%
Source: Terre-net.fr

The smokescreen that the FNSEA was able to build between its ministerial negotiations and 
the ground is still very thick. Alas the Conf has not managed to dispel it with peasants 
well " supervised " by the majority union, which has the stranglehold on all organisms 
touching agriculture: social security, insurance, bank, cooperatives, chambers agriculture ...

This framework maintains a common ideological background that could be summarized in a 
technicist corporatism. Basically: we are all part of the same family with the same 
interests ; unity is a sacred value, even if some people eat the others. This coupled with 
a technical and economic vision that takes precedence over everything. Technical progress 
erases the political stakes around the agricultural model.

One of the conclusions of these elections is that the speech of the Conf 'is hard to 
penetrate the agricultural population kneaded by this corporatist culture. This is a 
difficult question, which is essential to dig.

Urban society and peasants
At the challenges of climate change, agribusiness responds with a technological leap 
forward: drones to monitor crops, tractor without driver, nanotechnologies ... If we 
listen to them, it is a future without peasants or peasants that emerges . Produce without 
producers !

Faced with this, the Conf is well-honed: for a technology in our interest, the autonomy on 
the farm, the maintenance of a peasant agriculture ... In recent years, the direction of a 
fight against the industrial model has affirmed. Although there may still be debates on 
the subject internally, the opposition to ubiquitous projects like the " farm of 1000 cows 
" is largely unifying. We must intensify this fight and train more peasants.

The peasant Confederation has had the strength, in its struggle, to find allies in civil 
society and in many citizen movements. But lately, the danger also comes from this side. 
Environmental or vegan organizations carry out an offensive with a communication 
denouncing the industrial breeding, but to discredit any form of breeding. It is a real 
enterprise of rebuilding a vision of an agriculture without soil, without breeding animals 
and valuing the steak in-vitro.

Confédération paysanne en mobilization at Vigneux-de-Bretagne against 
Notre-Dame-des-Landes airport, 16 October 2018
The Conf has outlined responses that put agricultural production in a balanced dynamic 
with its environment. It is the farmer's point of view that has to be explained in a very 
urban society, which no longer has much contact with its agriculture. This issue is likely 
to grow in the years to come.

Boosting union action
What are the challenges for this Congress in Tours ? The subjects of struggle are not 
lacking in agriculture. We need to develop an effective union in which everyone can meet. 
This is a central topic for the congress.

Many departmental structures are fragile or nonexistent, but many have reactivated for the 
elections to chambers of agriculture. In order not to let motivation slip back into our 
networks, we need a more effective national animation to better share actions and 
experiences. Current operations place too much emphasis on a direct relationship between 
the national and the departments ; encouraging transversal exchanges and mutual aid 
between departments is essential.

 From this point of view, the regional level, too often neglected, should be reinvested. 
Especially since the stakes are strengthening at the regional level - agricultural 
prerogative of the regions, management of part of the Common Agricultural Policy ... We 
must stop with the fear that regional baronies will be created vis-à-vis the level 
national. Departments already have their political autonomy. It is by working on the 
horizontality of exchanges, meetings and experiences within our union that we will make 
peasants want to appropriate this tool and make it their instrument of struggle. The 
peasant Confederation must be nothing less, nothing more than a tool at the service of the 
peasant cause !

Georges Claas (AL Var)

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Confederation-paysanne-Contre-les-illusions-technologistes-et-antispecistes

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Message: 6





This article, with the guidance of anarchism as a theory, provides a critical analysis of 
Zimbabwe and its current state, arguing against simple analysis and going beyond 
individual politics. The real, underlying problem is a society governed by a class system 
under the control of a predatory state that cannot survive a day without the exploitation 
of its people. It is essential to organize and educate the masses for a revolution they 
can claim as their own, against all forms of oppression and that builds on everyday 
struggles to improve the deplorable conditions of Zimbabwe. ---- This article positions 
itself not only outside of the state, but against the state, under the guidance of 
anarchism as a theory. In it, I hope to give a critical analysis of Zimbabwe and its 
current state, arguing against simple analysis and going beyond individual politics. 
Rather, with the use of an anarchist lens, this article will carefully articulate the real 
underlying problem in Zimbabwe: it is a society governed by a class system, under the 
control of a predatory state that cannot survive a day without the endless exploitation of 
its people.

A comprehensive analysis of this nature hopes to make a valid contribution to help 
organize and educate the masses for a revolution they can claim as their own. A revolution 
that is specifically against all forms of oppression, and that builds on everyday 
struggles to improve the deplorable conditions of Zimbabwe. Equally importantly, this 
article is written in solidarity with the actions of the masses who stood against the 
violent regime on the 1st of August 2018, and again on the 14th of January 2019, and who 
fight for a better society. It encourages self-activity and the continuous development 
revolutionary awareness of the popular classes: the workers and working class, the poor, 
and the small peasant farmers.

Political context

Most media analyses of the problems in Zimbabwe, including its highly repressive state, 
have seen the causes as basically due to a few bad individuals, such as President Emmerson 
Mnangagwa (and his predecessor, President Robert Mugabe), trigger-happy generals and 
police chiefs, and the leadership of the ruling ZANU-PF party, which has been in office 
since 1980. This leads to the view that the problem can be fixed by a change in leading 
personnel in the state.

This is why the immediate response of many to the 15th of November 2017 military coup that 
installed former Vice-President Mnangagwa as President, and ousted Mugabe, was excitement 
and hope. Although this was really a coup by one ZANU-PF faction against another, it 
seemed a new person in the Presidency would solve the problems. This did not happen, 
leading many to then see the problem in terms of the unconstitutional way in which 
Mnangagwa had secured the office, followed by the way in which he consolidated and kept 
power. Again, the problem was seen in terms of individual behaviour.

Following the 2018 elections, where Mnangagwa headed the ZANU-PF campaign, there were 
widespread protests. On the 1st of August 2018, after a highly contested election process 
marred by numerous abuses, people took to the streets. They questioned the validity of the 
elections, and rejected ZANU-PF, which had, as usual, made sure it "won" the elections by 
fair means and foul. The government, as if acting on instinct, immediately dispatched the 
military and police against unarmed civilians, and killed at least six people. As during 
his coup, Mnangagwa used the means of coercion - that is, military and police forces, and 
jails, a pillar of the state that ordinary citizens do not own or control - to maintain 
what is effectively a ZANU-PF-headed military dictatorship.

In order to keep face with the international community, from which ZANU-PF seeks 
investment, loans and trade deals, a Commission of Inquiry was quickly launched. This 
presented its findings on the 11th of December. It found that "live ammunition, whips and 
gun butts" had been used on protesters, that this "was unjustifiable," and that there was 
completely disproportionate use of force by the state.[1]

President Mnangagwa himself had to report the findings at a press conference, and even 
noted the Commission's recommendation that such repression should never happen again.

Economic context

The situation created a legitimacy crisis for a ruling class, which was also faced with a 
crippled economy, suffering a serious liquidity crisis, a soaring unemployment rate 
estimated at 90%, a complete collapse of manufacturing industry, infrastructural crises, 
huge black markets, and serious agricultural problems.

In order to bolster the regime's incomes, the President then doubled the fuel price on the 
13th of January 2019, demanding that ordinary citizens pay for what became the most 
expensive fuel in the world. The fuel increase was fundamentally a government strategy to 
raise funds, given that 68% of the increment was going to taxes.

The announcement triggered a chain of events, which led to a call for peaceful protests 
and a National Shutdown or general strike, by respected activist Pastor Evans Mawarire and 
the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU). And so, less than a month since the 
Commission of Inquiry's shocking report on the post-election repression, and the promise 
"never again," more than 600 Zimbabweans were arrested without due process. At least 15 
people were killed, according to the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum. The courts were 
reported to be unresponsive, hiding in the great dark shadows of the state, shattering the 
myth of separation of powers and democratic reform under Mnangagwa.

In another offensive, Zimbabwe was turned into a black site through the state's total 
shutdown of the Internet, an attempt to hide the vicious nature of the state and allow the 
ruling class to regain control. This in turn had a brutal impact on the livelihoods of 
millions, since more than 85% of all financial transactions in Zimbabwe, including simple 
things like buying bread, require the use of the Internet.

What anarchism/ syndicalism help explain

The problem with explaining Zimbabwe in terms of a few bad leaders at the head of the 
state, is that it reduces the problem to the behaviour of a few. It does not examine the 
system that generates brutal leaders like Mugabe and Mnangagwa, and it cannot explain why 
the basic system does not change, even when some of the personnel does. It fails to 
explain why the Zimbabwean state did not change significantly, when the opposition 
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) won local elections, or with the entry of the MDC 
into a government of national unity with ZANU-PF in 2009. As the especifist Federación 
Anarquista Uruguaya (Uruguayan Anarchist Federation, FAU) has stressed, without a robust 
and coherent theory, one will always run the risk "of examining every problem 
individually, in isolation, starting from point of views that can be different in each 
case or examining them based on subjectivity."[2]

Therefore, it is essential to develop a systematic theory of the Zimbabwean state, and, in 
doing so, carefully unpack the political implications. Currently, there is not so much an 
in-depth critical analysis of the situation in Zimbabwe by the protest movements, but 
instead, simply a set of updates of what is happening. On the other side, there is a large 
section of the Left internationally that is taken in by the language of the Zimbabwean 
regime and thinks it is somehow progressive - even that Mugabe was better than Mnangagwa. 
This Left is trapped by the subjective claims of that state, rather than basing itself on 
an analysis of that state's objective features, and it is trapped by a focus on personalities.

Anarchism provides an essential corrective to both these approaches. It rejects the notion 
that the state is an empty place of power, which can be redirected to good or bad ends 
simply by changing who occupies the top seats. It argues, instead, that the state is an 
inherent part of the social problem we face. Control of the state apparatus is always 
vested in a small political elite, whose power rests on control of means of administration 
and means of coercion. These can be leveraged to accumulate wealth for that elite, 
including taking over means of production. These essential features are not changed by its 
rhetoric and its propaganda: as Mikhail Bakunin argued, "the people will feel no better if 
the stick with which they are being beaten is labelled the people's stick."

The "predatory" state

What developed in Zimbabwe from the 2000s is an extreme example of the state structure, 
where the state elite has mutated into the main economic elite as well, operating a huge 
system to extract wealth from the society. The local ruling class is now centred on the 
state, and it uses the state directly to accumulate wealth and maintain the class system. 
It either directly controls large parts of the economy, or is involved in the private 
sector through dense networks of corruption, patronage and rent-seeking. Much of this 
involves the military and most of it goes through ZANU-PF. The state preys on society, 
extracting wealth in the most destructive ways- it is "predatory" - and its key figures 
simply cannot afford to lose control over key state positions through open elections. This 
is what underlies the repression that is meted out to challengers, and the violence that 
takes between ruling class factions as well.

As anarchism also points out, no solution for the popular classes can come from 
involvement in the state, whether through running an alternate party, like the MDC, or 
through a revolution via the state apparatus, or a military coup. The state always serves 
the interests of a small ruling class - the predatory form, as seen in Zimbabwe, is just 
an extreme example. The problem is not about who is in charge, or which political party: 
the state as a form of organisation is core part of the class system. Its core features 
are not changed by changing faces, any more than a car becomes an aeroplane if you paint it.

When, slightly over a year ago, Zimbabwe bid a glad farewell to the old dictator, Mugabe, 
no systemic change took place. The removal of Mugabe was masked when the military coup 
dressed up as a democratic change, but it was simply a change of power between factions 
and figures in the ruling class; it was not a movement of wealth and power away from the 
ruling class.

 From state power to counter-power

Anarchism, noting this, argues that what is needed is not building a new party, or running 
in elections, but mass mobilisation and organisation and education, as the basis for a 
direct transfer of power to the people, and to bottom-up assemblies, councils and 
committees - away, that is, from the state and the corporations.

Anarchists, as Bakunin argued, obviously prefer free and fair elections a "thousand times" 
to regimes based on using "live ammunition, whips and gun butts" on protesters, just as 
they fight also for better wages and more jobs, and for cheaper fuel. But they see these 
everyday struggles as unable to change the fundamental nature of the system.

Therefore, it is important to fight to improve the deplorable conditions of Zimbabwe, but 
to do this as part of a process of building a popular counter-power; and to see fights for 
reforms as valuable in themselves, but also as spaces to organize and educate the masses 
for a revolution they can claim as their own, a complete take-over of society through mass 
democratic movements.

The National Shutdown in early 2019 shows the potential power of the popular classes, and 
it was especially interesting to see the ZCTU unions joining the call and mobilising. 
Anarchists believe that the trade union is an institution that can help workers to 
organize for reforms, but more importantly, that unions can be regenerated to be part of 
the process of building new social relations, that is, a site of counter-power, such as 
can contribute to building a new people's Zimbabwe.

A new Zimbabwe is possible but we must struggle for it, bearing in mind that the immediate 
goal has to be to build popular counter-power, involving mass organisation and widespread 
political education, hopefully growing to a wide-scale libertarian movement that can 
create a rupture with the state. A new Zimbabwe will not be handed down by a political 
party; it will certainly not come from the military under state control; it will require 
more than just ousting ZANU-PF. Rather it can only be created by ordinary people.

To do so, there is now a need to go beyond protests and move to building a revolutionary, 
specific anarchist organisation in suffering Zimbabwe. An organisation that will develop a 
clear program that pulls from all corners of the country, that partners with unions and 
the poor, the street traders and the small peasants, to build counter-power institutions, 
that stand as a counter to the state, defend the people and point to a new dawn.

[1]Report Of the Commission of Inquiry Into The 1st of August 2018 Post-Election Violence. 
http://manicapost.co.zw/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Final-Report-o...y.pdf

[2]Theory, Ideology and Political Practice: The FAU's Huerta Grande text 
http://blackrosefed.org/huerta-grande/

Related Link: http://zabalaza.net/2019/03/18/surviving-zimbabwe-an-anarchist-critique/

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31337

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Message: 7





We must be Communists because in Communism we will realize real equality. We must be 
Communists because people who do not understand collectivist sophistry can fully 
understand Communism, as our friends have already remarked, Remly and Kropotkin. We must 
be Communists because we are anarchists, because anarchy and communism are the two 
conditions that are necessary for the revolution. ---- Carlo Kafirer, Anarchy and 
Communism ---- In a conference[f. part of the First International]held in Paris from the 
Center area, a speaker who stood out because of his ferocity against the anarchists said: 
"Communism and anarchy would scream if they were together." ---- Another speaker who spoke 
also against the anarchists, though less hard, shouted, speaking of economic equality: 
"How can freedom be violated if there is equality?"

Well! I think both speakers are wrong.

There can be absolute economic equality, with no freedom at all. Certain religious 
communities are a living proof of this fact, since there is the most complete equality 
with despotism. Full equality, because the leader dresses with the same fabric and eats at 
the same table as others; he does not stand out in any other way than his right to rule. 
And the supporters of the "People's State"? If they do not encounter obstacles, I am 
certain that they will eventually achieve perfect equality, but at the same time perfect 
despotism, for, let us not forget, the despotism of the present State would strengthen the 
economic despotism of all the capital passed in the hands of the State, were multiplied by 
the necessary centralization required for this new State. And that's why we,

So, contrary to what has been said, we have the perfect reason to fear for freedom, even 
when there is equality; but there is no fear of equality where there is real freedom, in 
short, anarchy.

Finally, anarchy and communism, rather than screaming if they were together, would scream 
because they are not together - because these two terms, synonymous with freedom and 
equality, are the two indispensable and indivisible terms of the revolution.

Our revolutionary ideal is very simple, as we will see: it is composed, like all our 
predecessors, of these two terms: freedom and equality. There is only one small difference.

Trained by the experience of deception committed by those who oppose political and social 
liberties and reforms, of all kinds and at any moment, through the words freedom and 
equality, we considered it appropriate to put these two terms together with the expression 
of their exact value.

So we combine these two terms, freedom and equality, two equivalents, whose exact meaning 
can not cause misunderstandings and we argue: "We want freedom, namely anarchy and 
equality, that is, communism."
Anarchy today is an attack, a war against all authorities, against all power, against all 
states. In future societies, anarchy will be a defense, an obstacle to the 
re-establishment of power, of every power of every state: complete and complete freedom of 
the individual who, freely and pushed only by his needs, pleasures and preferences, is 
united other people in groups or cooperatives; free development of the cooperative 
federated together with others in the commune or neighborhood; free development of 
communes that join federations in the region - and so on: regions in the nation, nations 
to humanity.

Communism, the issue that concerns us more specifically today, is the second point of our 
revolutionary ideal.
Communism today is still an attack; it is not the destruction of power but the 
acquisition, in the name of mankind, of all the wealth that exists on the planet. In 
communion of the future, Communism will be the enjoyment of all the wealth, from all 
people and according to the principle: from each according to his / her abilities, to each 
according to his / her needs, that is, from everyone to everyone his desire.

It is necessary to observe - and this answers our opponents, the ruling and staunch 
communists - that the possession and enjoyment of the existing wealth must, according to 
us, be an act of the people themselves. People, they say, humanity, are not people capable 
of confiscating wealth and taking it into their own hands; we must conclude, it is true, 
that it is necessary for this reason to establish a ruling class, its representatives and 
representatives common wealth. But we do not share this view. Neither middlemen nor 
representatives who always end up representing anyone other than their own! No manager of 
equality, no manager of freedom! No new government, no new state, is either called popular 
or democratic, revolutionary or temporary.

The common wealth distributed throughout the world, with all its rights to belong to the 
whole of mankind, will be shared by those who are at the level of this wealth and able to 
use it. The people of such land will use the planet, the machines, the workshops, the 
houses, the land, etc. to serve them all together. Parts of humanity, will exercise here, 
directly and directly, their right to a part of human wealth. But even if a resident of 
Beijing were on this land, he would have the same rights as others: he would enjoy the 
wealth of the country along with the others, as he did in Beijing.

He was so confused, that speaker who denounced the anarchists that they want to create 
property as union members. Would not it be great to destroy the state to replace it with a 
multitude of smaller states? Kill the monster with one head to get in front of the monster 
with the thousand heads!

No, we have said it, and we will not stop saying it: neither mediators nor brokers or 
helpful servants who always end up becoming the real rulers: we want all the existing 
wealth to be taken directly by the people themselves and held by the powerful hands and 
people themselves to decide the best way to enjoy it, either for production or for 
consumption.

But people ask us: is communism applicable? Could we have enough products to let everyone 
have the right to get what they want without requiring people more work than they are 
willing to give?

We answer: yes. It is certain that we can apply this principle: from each according to its 
capabilities, to each according to its needs, because in future societies production will 
be so abundant that we will not have to restrict consumption or demand from people more 
work than they are willing or able to give.
At this moment we can not imagine this huge increase in production, but we can assume it
looking at the causes that will cause it. These reasons can be summed up in three principles:

1. Harmony of cooperation in the various branches of human activity that will replace the 
current battles that translate into competition.

2. Large-scale introduction of all types of machinery.

3. Maintaining labor and raw materials, supported by the abolition of harmful or 
unnecessary production.

Competition, battle, is one of the fundamental principles of capitalist production, which 
has as a slogan: mors tua vita mea, your death your life. The destruction of one makes the 
other's property. And this relentless struggle is happening from nation to nation, region 
to region, person to person, worker, and capitalist. It is a deadly battle, a struggle of 
all forms: struggle with body, struggle in groups, clubs, military bodies. An employee 
finds work when someone else loses it; a branch or many industries are prospering when 
others are declining.
Well! Imagine when, in the society of the future, this individualistic principle of 
capitalist production, that every individual is interested in turning himself against 
others, and by extension, all turn against all, will be replaced by the true principle of 
human society: one for all and all for one - will we not get huge changes in production 
results? Imagine how great the growth of production will be when every human being, away 
from the need to fight others, will be helped by those who will not be enemies but 
collaborators. If the collective work of ten people results in an absolutely impossible 
result for just one person, how big will be the results of a large-scale collaboration of 
all the people who are now hostile to one another:

And the machines? The appearance of these powerful work assistants, as wide as we may be 
today, is minimal in relation to what will be in future societies.

Today, machines often have the ignorance of the capitalist, but more often his interest. 
How many machines will not be used just because they do not bring a direct benefit to the 
capitalist?

Will a coal mining company, for example, be led to a considerable financial burden in 
order to safeguard the interests of workers and to build expensive machinery to help 
miners go down to mines? Will the local authority bring a machine to break the rocks when 
this work gives it the means to give cheap charity to the hungry? So many discoveries, so 
many applications of science are overlooked simply because they do not bring enough to the 
capitalist!

The worker himself is now an enemy of the machines and rightly so long as he is the 
monster that comes to chase him, make him hungry, degrade him, torture him, crush him. And 
what an enormous interest would be, instead, to increase their number when the worker is 
no longer at the service of the machines; on the contrary, they would be at his service, 
helping him for his welfare!

Finally, it is necessary to take into account the enormous savings that will result from 
the three elements of labor: the power, the means and the materials, which are being 
wasting enormously today, as they are used to produce absolutely useless objects when it 
is not harmful for Humanity.

How many workers, how many materials and how many tools are currently used by the armies 
of the earth and the sea to build ships, forts, cannons and all these weapons of 
aggressive and defensive weapons? How many of these forces are being wasted to produce 
luxurious items that serve nothing but the needs of vanity and corruption!
And when all this power, all these materials, all these tools are used in the industry to 
produce objects that will themselves serve production, what a magnificent growth we will 
see in it!

Yes, communism is workable! We can of course allow everyone to take their will, as there 
will be enough for everyone. We will no longer need to demand more work than anyone wants 
to give, because there will always be enough products for tomorrow.

And thanks to this abundance the work will lose the scary character of enslavement, 
leaving only the charm of a moral and natural need, such as study and life with nature.

We do not just want to say that communism is possible; we can confirm that it is 
necessary. Not only would we want to be communists; we have to be communists, otherwise we 
risk losing the meaning of the revolution.
In fact, after collectivizing tools and raw materials, if we maintain the individual 
appropriation of labor products, we will find ourselves forced to save money, and then 
there will be more or less accumulation of wealth, depending on the greater or lesser 
value, or rather, depending on the greater or lesser capacity of individuals. Equality 
would therefore disappear because those who would be able to gather more wealth would have 
been exalted in relation to the level of others. It would not be more than one step before 
counter-revolutionaries could establish the right of inheritance. I even heard a famous 
socialist, a so-called revolutionary, who supported the individual product performance and 
ended his speech by saying that he did not see any disadvantage in a society that accepted 
the transfer of the products by heritage: this, he said, would be unlikely to have any 
impact. For those of us who know closely the results that society has reached with this 
accumulation of wealth and their transfer by inheritance, there can be no doubt about this 
issue.

But the individual distribution of products would once again establish not only the 
inequality between people but also the inequality between different forms of work. We 
would almost immediately see the reappearance of "clean" and "dirty" work, "noble" and 
"awful" work: the first would be made by the rich, the second would have been given to the 
poor. So it would no longer be the call and the taste that would lead a person to devote 
themselves to one kind of activity in relation to another: it would be his interest, the 
hope of gaining more in a particular profession. In this way, laziness and diligence, 
value and lack of value, good and bad, evil and virtue, and hence "reward" on the one hand 
and "punishment" on the other, the law, judge, champions,
There are socialists who are clinging to the idea of individual product allocation based 
on the feeling of justice.

Strange illusion! With collective work, which imposes the need for large-scale production 
and large-scale use of machines, with this ever-increasing tendency of modern work to 
serve itself through the work of previous generations - how can we determine which parts 
of product belong to whom? It is absolutely impossible, and our own opponents know it so 
well that they end up saying "Well, we will use as a basis for the allocation of hours of 
work" but, at the same time, they themselves admit that this would be unfair, because by 
three hours work from Pierre could produce as much as five hours of work from Paul.

In the old days, we called ourselves "collectivists" because that was the word that 
distinguished us from the individualists and from the totalitarian communists; but 
ultimately we are all simply anti-authoritarian communists and, the self-styled 
"collectivists," we believed that we were expressing with that name our idea that 
everything has to be gathered without distinguishing between tools and materials of work 
and collective work products.

But one day we saw a new shade of socialists who, reviving the mistakes of the past, 
admiring themselves while they were philosophizing, separating themselves in this matter, 
ended their word by making themselves the apostles of the following position:

"There are," they say, "the value of use and the value of production. The value of use is 
what we use to meet our personal needs: the home we live in, the food we eat, the clothes, 
the books, etc., while the production value is what we use to produce: the lab, the lab 
sheds, pens, warehouse, machines and tools of all kinds of work, the sun, raw materials, 
etc. The first, serving the needs of the individual, "they say," must be attributed to the 
individual while the latter, which help everyone to produce, should be held together .

This is the recently discovered - or rather, renewed as needed - economic theory.

But I ask you, you who give the favorable title of "production value" to the coal that 
feeds the machinery, the mineral oil it serves to lubricate, the oil that lightens its 
work - because you deny that title to bread, meat I eat in the oil with which I prepare my 
salad, in the light that illuminates my work, in everything that helps in the life and 
operation of this perfect machine, the father of all machines: man?

Is the pasture and stall used as a production value to serve as housing for cows and 
horses and exclude the homes and gardens that serve the most noble of all animals: man?

Where is your logic?

Besides, you yourself, imagining yourself as the disciples of this theory, are well aware 
that this separation does not exist in reality, and that if it is difficult to portray it 
today, it will disappear completely on the day that we will all be producing at the same 
time and consumers.

Thus, we see that this is not the theory that could give a new impetus to proponents of 
the individual labor product yields. This theory gained only one result: that of the 
revelation of the play of these few socialists who wanted to limit the breadth of 
revolutionary thought; it opened our eyes and showed us the necessity to say that we are 
Communists.

But ultimately, let us deal with the one and only serious objection that our opponents 
brought against communism.
We all agree that we are necessarily moving towards Communism, but we see that in the 
beginning the products will not be abundant; we will have to establish portions and 
separate resources, and the best part of the products of labor will be based on the amount 
of work that everyone will do.

In this, we respond that in a future society, even when we are obliged to allocate 
resources, we must remain communists: this means that distribution must be done not 
according to value but to needs.
Take, for example, the family, this small model of communism (a more authoritarian 
Communism from anarchist, it is true, but which in our example does not change anything).

In the family, let's assume that the father brings home one hundred cents every day, the 
older son three francs, the middle forty cents, and the only one five cents a day. 
Everyone brings the money to the mother who keeps the cash and feeds all of them. Everyone 
wins different amounts, but at dinner, everyone serves himself according to his appetites; 
there is no distribution. But bad days are coming and the total lack of money forces the 
mother to no longer rely on the appetite and taste of each person for dinner delivery. It 
is necessary to give specific portions of food and, at the initiative of the mother or 
with the tacit agreement of the whole table, the portions are reduced. You see, however, 
this distribution does not happen depending on profits, because they are the youngest 
children who receive the most generous portions while the best piece of meat is intended 
for the elderly woman who does not win anything. Even in the absence of food, the family 
operates on the principle of distribution according to the needs of each. Could it be 
different in the human family of the future?

It is obvious that I could say more about this issue if I did not speak in front of 
anarchists.
We can not be anarchists without being Communists. In fact, the slightest restriction of 
ideas already contains seeds of authoritarianism. It would not prevent it being understood 
before the law, the judge, the policeman was immediately created.

We must be Communists because in Communism we will realize real equality. We must be 
Communists because people who do not understand collectivist sophistry can fully 
understand Communism, as our friends have already remarked, Remly and Kropotkin. We must 
be Communists because we are anarchists, because anarchy and communism are the two 
conditions that are necessary for the revolution.

* Translation: Lazy Protestants
https://rabidproletarians.espivblogs.net/archives/806
Related Link: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/carlo-cafiero-anarchy-and-communism

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31335

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Message: 8





The 3rd Congress of Anarchist Political Organization-Federation of Collectives took place 
on the 1st and 2nd of December at Mundo Nuevo squat in Thessaloniki. During the morning of 
the first day, there was an open discussion-analysis on the social and political 
situation, and also the collectives' open political assessment concerning the function of 
the organization. Apart from the collectives-members of the A.P.O. (anarchist collectives 
"Circle of Fire" and "Omikron 72" from Athens, collective for the libertarian communism 
"Libertatia" and collective for the social anarchism "Red and Black" from Thessaloniki and 
the anarchist collective "Untamed Horse" from Patras), the anarchist collective "Pueblo" 
from Thessaloniki, took also part on the discussion. We continued by enriching the 
positions of the political statute of A.P.O (by incorporating two new positions concerning 
the "destruction of nature" and the "educational process"), and by assessing the general 
collective and decisive procedure of APO, the working-groups (counter-info group, 
translation and international communication group), the editorial board of the anarchist 
newspaper "Land and Freedom" and the special thematic group (Group against patriarchy). 
Moreover, we assessed the political initiatives and actions taken by A.P.O. during this 
year and formed our political strategy up to our next Congress.

The Congress was completed with the validation of the decisions taken on issues of 
political position, strategy and tactics, and with scheduling of our next Colloquy in 
summer 2019, in Patra, and of our next Congress in a year's time, in Athens.

The collectives-members of the A.P.O. positions are based on their understanding of the 
organization as part of the wider movement against state's and capitalism's barbarism. It 
refers to it and interacts with it, by proposing the choice of the organized anarchist 
struggle as a realistic and efficient prospect. It attempts to become a vehicle in order 
to pass from partial and reflexive protest, to a unified revolutionary anarchist proposal, 
inspired by today's struggles. The experience and long term involvement to the struggle 
led us to the understanding that the organization is an important condition for its 
development, aiming to the creation of an -as much as possible- complete revolutionary 
plan, which can contribute to the increasing needs of present struggles, but also to place 
a realistic proposal, which would have the vision of an emancipated and self-managed 
social organization at its center, into society. Just as life is not possible without 
solidarity and cooperation, revolution and struggle are not possible without a preexisting 
revolutionary organization.

At the current period the -politically, ideologically and economically- bankrupted system 
cannot promise anything more than wars, exclusions and misery. It is fortifying itself 
against the perspective of a dynamic expression of the generalized social discontent, at a 
local and a global level. It is the period when the states and the bosses are trying to 
impose to the social majority their announcement on "the end of the history", in order to 
convince us that there is no alternative for human societies, but the one, in which the 
large social majority is forced to live in penury, poverty, diseases, destitution and 
wars. The State and Capitalist machine attempts to intensify inequalities, repression and 
exploitation. Domination, aiming to increase power and control, does not hesitate to form 
war conflicts in the periphery, while it proceeds with its attack against the plebeians in 
the West, establishing the dark reality of modern totalitarianism. The state of Emergency 
is expanding, by establishing the state of exception as an essential norm of the 
organization of every-day life, and by opening the way for the creation of a "Camp-Society".

This generalized attack of the dominants aims to impose total control on human societies 
and to gain absolute power over them, to loot and to destroy nature. From Syria to USA, 
from Istanbul to Western Europe and South America, the political and economic bosses have 
targeted the majority of the oppressed and exploited, foreshadowing even more repression, 
destruction and death.

On parallel, the infinite liberating possibilities of the struggles, which erupt all over 
the world, are emerging against the international antisocial alliance of the global elites 
and their projected war societies. >From Rojava to Chiapas, from the favelas in Brazil to 
the antifascist blockades in Western Europe and the Balkans, the cause of Social 
Revolution is still alive, placing barricades to the attack of the state and the bosses 
and forming the conditions for the social and class counter-attack.

This social and class counter-attack frightens the dominants so much as to bring forward 
the darkest force of human history, in order to suppress it. Due to the generalized crisis 
of the state-capitalist system, their ability to extract social legitimization for their 
plans has reached its limits. This is the reason why the far-right and fascist reserves of 
the dominants - the counter-revolutionary bloc -  are dragged up from the system's arsenal 
and are taking action internationally, in order to pave the way for the strategic plans of 
the Authority. From Bolsonaro's Brazil, to Visegrád's Fortress-Europe, to the far-right 
shift in Italy and France, to Balkan nationalisms, and Erdogan's Turkey, fascism is the 
system's response to its profound and total crisis, to its own contradictions. 
Contradictions that are caused by the incurable conflict imposed by its basic principle, 
the exploitation and repression of one human being against the other. These elements, 
along with war and the threat of its generalization, are forming the iron fence of 
authority, which is spreading globally.

In Greece, the administrative delusions that the Social Democratic version of modern 
totalitarianism has sowed the previous years have played their part fully. The state and 
capitalist attack continues, by imposing the one-way course of exploitation and 
oppression, attempting, at the same time, to extend the life of the already bankrupt 
system, by forming conditions of decomposition of social-class resistances, national 
reconciliation and inter-class cooperation. At the same time, through a renewed rhetoric 
about "exiting the memoranda", it is once again attempted to extract legitimization for 
the next rounds of plunder of the overwhelming majority of society, by cultivating once 
again delusions of embellishing the system.

In parallel, the counter-revolutionary side is already here and is preparing to play its 
special role. On the occasion of raising the so-called "Macedonian issue", according to 
the EU's and NATO's instructions, nationalism is being reconstructed to prepare the 
strategic plan for the mutual extermination of the exploited classes. The fascist groups 
are coordinated with the most conservative parts of the national core (paramilitary 
groups, religious organizations, far-right parties, parastatal mechanisms), in order to 
constitute the counter-revolutionary and fascist reserves of the state and the dominant 
class. At the same time, they are disorienting the exploited away from their real social 
problems, spreading intolerance and bringing together the most reactionary social reflexes.

In addition, in the present political occasion, the regime takes advantage of the "left" 
political management by simultaneously promoting, along with the attack, the integration 
and disarmament of the social and class resistances, the merge of the wide anti-government 
social frustration with the fascist rhetoric of nationalism, racism, intolerance and 
security, aiming to expand its influence. At the same time, the governing left, as another 
aspect of modern state totalitarianism, vulgarizes, denigrates and misrepresents the 
universal human values of solidarity, humanism and equality.

The dissolution of every social tie, the lack of class consciousness and the absence of a 
culture for collective problem solving, which emerge from the war of the state and the 
bosses against any sense of community and collective, with the clash between the poor and 
excluded as its most obvious outcome, critically contribute in the configuration of 
conditions of social fascistization. Thus, a recycling violence amongst the plebeian 
social classes. Social cannibalism is a condition desired and promoted by the dominance, 
as it can manipulate social rage by transferring its burst away from the truly responsible 
for the degeneracy of this world, channeling it into an never-ending "everyone vs 
everyone" war among the exploited.

In this reality of complete decay, the extraction of social consent for its plans is much 
desired by the system. However, no electoral "solutions" or consent can be granted to the 
state and capitalistic brutality. For the exploited masses, the upcoming elections have 
nothing to offer, but the intensification of the existing slavery conditions through the 
strengthening that the re-legitimization of political representation will produce. Nothing 
less than the intensification of the exploitation and the oppression, the social 
threatening through unemployment, impoverishment and repression.

On the one hand, the continuation of the existing political administration will lead to an 
even greater numbness of the social and class resistances and a disarmament of the 
movement, in a period that the recovery and the expansion of the collective struggles of 
society - and especially of those struggles that emerge from below - is a constant goal, 
in order to stop the advance of the state, the capital and the fascists. On the other 
hand, the reinstatement to the neoliberal version will initiate a new round of war against 
all those -the poor, the outcasts and the people of the struggle- who are already targeted 
by the political-economic system. The obvious aim of the authority is their subjugation, 
in order to open the way for the unhampered imposition of the plans of the political and 
economic elite, which desire to create conditions similar to those of the labor camps.

Regardless of the election's result, it is certain that the next day will mark the 
beginning of a new fierce round of repression against the social and class struggles, and 
especially against the anarchist - antiauthoritarian movement, against which a sweeping 
repressive attack has been preparing, aiming not only to its confinement, but to its 
complete extermination. The political presence and actions of the anarchists all the 
previous years, the proposal of the self-organized resistance from below, the vision of 
Social Revolution as the only realistic alternative for society against the alleged 
inescapable choice of the state and capitalistic decay, the darkness of fascism and the 
dead-ends of the reformist illusions, make the anarchists a real danger for the dominants 
and that's why they are the main target of regime's oppressive strategy.

Against the dark perspective of Modern Totalitarianism, the social and class resistances, 
the struggles of people worldwide for the overthrowing off the state and capitalistic 
brutality, emerge as the only hope. In these struggles, we, the anarchists, live and 
breathe. We aspire, through our organized political presence and our action in the 
existing fronts of struggle and the creation of new ones, to connect the real social needs 
and the anarchist worldview and practice, in order to transform those resistances into 
springboards of social and class emancipation. These struggles inspire and give us 
strength to carry on:

·         The struggles against war, military bases and militarism, especially at a time 
that the clouds of a bigger war are getting thicker above humanity.

·         The mobilizations in solidarity with the immigrants and refugees against the 
state of exception, prisons and concentration camps. For the freedom of movement and 
solidarity between people.

·         The internationalist barricades against war, nationalism and fascism. From 
Kamara to Propylaea and the Pan-Balkan internationalist demonstration of solidarity with 
the Libertatia squat in Thessaloniki.

·         The struggle against parastatal and fascist forces on the streets, in the 
neighborhoods and the schools, in every field they attempt to rise.

·         The struggles for the defense of squats and self-organized spaces of life and 
resistance, as reference points of the struggle for Social Revolution. The realization of 
rebuilding Libertatia squat by the movement, in order for solidarity to win!

·         The struggles for the defense of class rights. From the defense of the main 
residence and Sunday off work, to the preservation of the right to strike and the 
potential for the development of a competitive and combative syndicalism from the base, as 
it was pointed out by the 1st November strike, which was multi-sectoral and organized from 
below.

·         The struggles for the defense of basic social needs and of the people's free 
access to them. From food and accommodation to electricity, water and public transport.

·         The mobilizations of women - from Mexico to Turkey - against the state, 
capitalism and patriarchy, for emancipation and freedom.

·         The struggles for the defense of nature and local communities against their 
looting and destruction. From Acheloos and Skouries, to Lefkimi and Agrafa.

·         The dynamic mobilizations against drug mafias, state oppression and social 
cannibalism in Exarcheia, that revitalize resistance and the movement's culture in a place 
of historical symbolic significance for the struggle.

·         The struggles for collectivity and solidarity, against individualization and 
social cannibalism.

·         The demonstrations for the preservation of the social and class memory and for 
the promotion of the historical importance of today's revolts. From May 1st, to the 
uprising of the Polytechnic school and the revolt of December '08. And from Chile to 
Mexico and from the U.S.A. to France and Turkey.

Against the brutality of war and modern totalitarianism, which is unfolding worldwide 
(restructurings, state of emergency and state of exception, nature's looting, military 
operations and constant preparations for new ones, as anarchists,) we have to juxtapose 
our weapons of social, class and international solidarity, acknowledging that nowadays the 
connection of all those who fight internationally and our common struggle against the 
common attack we are receiving are more crucial than ever. In every open front of the 
social and class struggle, wherever the aggression of the state and the capital is 
expressed, aiming to radicalize the struggles through their connection with the universal 
social vision of class and social emancipation.

Against the attack of decayed world of authority, we have to juxtapose the solidarity of 
our common struggles. Against the dystopia of modern totalitarianism, in which the vast 
majority is being impoverished and subdued, we propose the libertarian society, organized 
through confederate social councils "for the Freedom of each one and the Equality of all.

AGAINST THE GLOBAL DICTATORSHIP OF THE STATE AND THE CAPITAL

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE UNIVERSAL SOCIAL REVOLUTION, ANARCHY AND LIBERTARIAN COMMUNISM WILL WIN!

January 2019

Anarchist Political Organization - Federation of Collectives

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