Today's Topics:
1. Czech, AFED: Detectives and anarchism (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. PALANG HITAM INDONESIA: Calling for global anarchist
solidarity action! (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. France, Union Communiste Libertaire UCL - Unit call, Homes,
CRA, Undocumented Migrants: Immediate Measures Against the
Sanitary Bomb ! (fr, it, pt)[machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. Britain, anarchist communist ACG: VE Day - 75 years on
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. Poland, ZSP: Fiction of "Employee Councils" and "Crew
Representatives" [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
6. ICL-CIT ESE Athens: May Day finds us locked dow: KORONOPSOS:
LET'S NOT RETURN TO NORMALITY [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
Do you also read detective stories for quarantine? What about crime against the background of capitalist relations? ---- What do detective
stories and the social revolution have in common? Isn't reading and writing stories in this genre a means of escaping real problems,
escaping life? Aren't their heroes supermen defending political order and capitalist property relations? ---- Of course, reading detective
stories can serve as an escape from reality: who among us would not like to forget, at least for a moment, the disgusting monotony and
stereotype of everyday life in capitalism? And yet detective stories are not limited to this. There is something else hidden in them. ----
The beginnings of detective stories must be traced to social criticism. The first detective novel, The Adventures of Caleb Williams (Things
as They Are, or The Adventures of Caleb Williams) wrote in 1794 one of the first anarchist William Godwin. The author used the history of
one murder and its investigation by Caleb Williams to subject radical criticism to the despotism of a society in which the law only serves
as a weapon from the arsenal of the ruling class.
Caleb serves the aristocrat Lord Falkland and accidentally discovers that the Lord has committed murder for which another person has been
imprisoned. Although he is not going to expose his master, Falkland has him imprisoned for lying. Caleb escapes, but is ruthlessly
persecuted. To save himself, he tells the truth and the lord is forced to confess to the crime. Even after Falkland's death, Caleb Williams
is tormented by remorse because he considers Falkland to be the product of a criminal social system and regrets his role in the death of the
aristocrat.
The adventures of Caleb Williams have all the elements of a classic detective story, but at the same time he uncompromisingly criticizes
social injustice and a corrupt justice system. Both crime and the criminal himself are the products of the existing system.
With the help of market production, capitalism controls what the state cannot forbid and suppress. Capitalism changes new ideas and
directions in goods and thus deprives them of revolutionary content. He did the same with the socially critical novel. The detective novel
has turned into an instrument of maintaining the existing order - it solves criminal mysteries in his favor.
A classic example is Sherlock Holmes. If Godwin used the detective genre to explain how the social mechanism works, how economic, political,
and judicial power works (Caleba first had to be subtitled Things as They Are ), Conan Doyle presents the reader with mystery as an
intellectual conundrum. By imitating the style of contemporary scientific research, he developed the basics of today's detective story.
However, his mysterious detective Holmes is a loner, standing above the surrounding society, in a way a Nietzschean superman, able to
unravel secrets even when they capitulate to the forces of "law and order". He is the perfect "expert", the forerunner of the "specialists"
and managers who control our entire lives today. And it defends the ruling class.
The great Agatha Christie went even further. If Holmes helped individual representatives of the ruling caste, then in Agatha Christie's
novels the way of life of the upper classes of British society is protected. The threat comes from outside, especially from the "lower
classes" who do not know their place or do not recognize it. The real innovation that Christie brought was that her investigation was led
not only by an expert, but also by an ordinary "old lady" - Miss Marple.
In the days of the predominant reactionary form of detective stories, there was also one revolutionary attempt to create a story of crime
through social criticism. We are talking about Franz Kafka's novel The Trial , which, however, is usually not classified as a detective story.
The main character of the novel K. is accused of some mysterious institution of committing an obscure crime, about which he is not clear
either. He is unsuccessfully trying to achieve justice in a despotic and absolute power with which he cannot even come into direct contact.
The culmination is the complete disillusionment of K., the loss of all human dignity and his animal execution.
Kafka combined the person of the detective and the accused into one character and showed that power, bureaucracy, authority work only in
their own interest. K. did not commit any crime - at least the crime he is accused of is not even named. The central theme of Kafka's story
is the will and irrationality of state power.
The process is an overwhelming critique of power. It is not for nothing that Kafka was apparently in contact with Czech anarchists. However,
his attempt to add radicality to crime stories remained an exception in Europe shaken by war and revolution.
Another serious attempt to return the detective to her socially critical role was made by a group of writers who gathered around the
American detective magazine Black Mask .
The most prolific of them was Erle Stanley Gardner, who became one of the most successful authors of detective stories in the history of
American literature. He created the unforgettable character of lawyer Perry Mason. Gardner built detective stories on several key elements -
dialogues, plot and plot. And he did so well that Raymond Chandler later took some of the plot from his Dangerous Widow Case into his novel
Goodbye Either, My Love . Early novels about Perry Mason are radically focused. In them, the renowned lawyer defends the persecuted against
injustice and the sales police (as did the beginning lawyer Gardner himself).
At the same time, he collaborated with the Black Mask Dashiell Hammett. He worked for a time at the Pinkerton detective agency, founded in
the 19th century and "famous" for collaborating on strike and shooting at workers. What Hammett saw and experienced there enabled him to
understand the true nature of capitalist society and led him to communist views. He has written several novels, including The Red Harvest ,
an almost undisguised allegory of universal capitalist marketability leading to a social revolution. However, this work is less well known
than his later books The Maltese Falcon or The Skinny Man. Hammett is considered the father of a new concept of the genre - the so-called
rough school. He thus laid the foundations of a real transformation of the contemporary detective genre, the most important representative
of which was Raymond Chandler. He perfected the detective language introduced by Hammett under the influence of the great American writer
Francis Scott Fitzgerald.
He used words and images out of the ordinary context and gave them razor sharpness, creating a style that aroused the enthusiasm of such
excellent writers as Sartre and Camus, and influenced a generation of writers, such as James Hanley.
The background to the detective stories of Hammett and Chandler is the American "dry law" of the 1920s and 1930s. It changed the picture of
crime in the USA, erased the difference between different types of crime, led to its prosperity and turned corruption in the police
apparatus and the judiciary into a system.
Chandler criticized the helplessness of the traditional detective story in the excellent essay The Simple Art of Murder . The hero of
Chandler's stories, Phill Marlow, serves as a mediator to show the reader that general, systemic marketability. He works on the orders of
the rich and powerful, who are no less criminals than ordinary bandits, with whom they often pact.
Ross Macdonald also adopted Chandler's method. His detective stories are a harsh accusation of contemporary capitalism. In his language,
there are many parallels with Hammett and Fitzgerald, and the social critique in his novels is based on the influence of social conditions
on individuals.
Macdonald often combines the social and psychological consequences of wars and crimes committed much later. As if to show the influence of
militarism on future generations. Young people are often weighed down between honesty and crime, hope and despair. However, Macdonald puts
hope for social change.
It also shows the relationship between capitalism and the destruction of nature. In the novel The Missing, the suburbs of Los Angeles are
threatened by a forest fire, and in this context, Macdonald's hero Lew Archer investigates a murder and disappearance case. The ecological
catastrophe threatens from the outside, and the emptiness and the alienation of the rich divide society from within. Macdonald put the two
factors together: it turns out that the murder under investigation led to the fire. It becomes so obvious that man's relationship to man is
directly linked to man's relationship to nature.
Traditions of socially critical detective stories also exist in other countries. Léo Malet, a well-known French author of detective stories
and "black novels", was a surrealist and anarchist in his youth. Anarchists are also devoted to several of his novels, such as The Fog on
the Tolbia Bridge and The Crazy Years of Nestor Burma . An example of a journalist who helps investigate Malet's hero Nestor Burm was André
Colomer, who edited the French anarchist newspaper Le Libertaire in the 1920s . Burma himself, with his nonconformism, resembles Chandler's
hero Phil Marlow.
Later detective stories made the murder in memory of 1984 written by the libertarian socialist Didier Daeninckx. Like Macdonald, the author
combines individual and social crime. The murder in 1961 during the Algerian independence demonstrations in Paris was followed twenty years
later by the murder of the victim's son. The revelation of the crime shows a link between police settlements with Algerians and the
deportation of Jews to Nazi death camps during World War II (a book long before Maurice Papon's conviction opens the case of this
collaborator and subsequently a successful civil servant, MP and minis
https://www.afed.cz/text/7167/detektivky-a-anarchismus
------------------------------
Message: 2
"STOP THE ISOLATION OF OUR COMRADES IN TANGERANG, RELEASED OUR COMRADES IN MALANG, FREE ALL THE ANARCHISTS!" ---- Introduction ---- While we
know that the state will act in a totalitarian manner in this times pandemic and economic crisis and as being anarchists we dont value their
laws, but in our constant struggle against the prevailing capitalist ideology that continues to colonialised our daily lives, the purpose of
ABC are to help the political defendants in legal matters in which to ensure they get the "rights" for them and to communicate with them, to
make them not isolated and feeling alone. Every decision are theirs and we value that, but when the state are trying to orchestrate a
bullshit narrative into scapegoating the anarchists or the anarchist movement in general in Indonesia in order to veil their own
incompetency in dealing with the crisis and pandemic, we asked you, not for money or anything involving that, but to show your solidarity in
whatever means. It can be graffiti, banner dropping, or most importantly to acknowledge every Indonesian consulate about the isolation and
the arbitrary action that the police are doing to them. Please read the following articles (two of the were written by the Individualist
Sect) and some of them are from mainstream media.
Mainstream media:
(on these reports or in any other reports Indonesian police only knew one tendency, that is anarcho syndicalism, which are false and poor
research because the anarchist movement in Indonesia are very diverse and there's only one small group inactive anarcho-syndicalist and not
a union)
https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/04/14/books-seized-five-arrestedas-police-claimanarcho-syndicalists-plan-mass-looting-in-java.html
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/coronavirus-police-arrest-five-indonesians-attempting-to-instigate-looting
(These are the earlieast reports from the Individualist Sect concerning the arrests and media sensationalisation)
https://anarchistsworldwide.noblogs.org/post/2020/04/12/about-the-indonesian-anarchist-witch-hunt-and-the-normal-activist-mentality/
https://anarchistsworldwide.noblogs.org/post/2020/04/23/indonesia-the-continual-anarchist-witch-hunt-the-scenario-of-state-incompetence/
Chronology of Tangerang Anarchists Isolation
On April 9, 2020, R, Af, and Ri were arrested in a tavern in Tangerang on vandalism charges. Apart from the minor crimes they committed, the
police showed an arrest warrant that did not have their names listed. The family was also notified of this arrest on April 11, 2020, 2 days
after the arrest. In fact, Af is a minor. The legal process is not in accordance with procedures and until now all three are still blocked
by the police to get legal assistance. *
The right to receive legal representation is stipulated in articles 69, 70, 72, Law no. 8 of 1981 concerning Criminal Procedure Law. * "The
tendency to obstruct access to legal representation is a violation of the right to a fair trial as contained in Article 14 of the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Ratified in Law No. 12 of 2005)" *
Immediately Fulfill Their Rights To Get A Legal Assistant!
Black Cross - WA - www.palanghitamanarkis.noblogs.org
Ps: Three more arrested and are still behind bars in East Java, Malang. They are prosecuted with the same charges "public provocation" under
160 Law such those comrades in Tangerang.
Ps: Theres already small gestures of solidarity from Netherland and Australia. Links below:
https://palanghitamanarkis.noblogs.org/post/2020/05/04/solidaritas-internasional-untuk-tahanan-anarkis-tangerang-malang-dan-tahanan-politik-papua-barat/
https://palanghitamanarkis.noblogs.org/post/2020/05/05/solidaritas-anarkis-utrecht-untuk-tahanan-anarkis-indonesia/
By ANA on 8 May 2020
https://palanghitamanarkis.noblogs.org/post/2020/05/05/calling-for-anarchists-global-solidarity-action/
------------------------------
Message: 3
Homes, CRA, Undocumented migrants: "For these populations, the current health crisis is becoming a veritable health bomb". More than 170
organizations, including the UCL, call for a day of demonstrations on Saturday May 30: "these demands for justice and equality are also
imperative sanitary necessities beyond which all speeches against the spread of the coronavirus are in vain". ---- In overcrowded and
abandoned homes, no physical distance is possible. The virus may spread without brake. This is also the case in detention centers, and to
this are added repressive violence and anxiety. For migrants on the street, it is hunger, social and health insecurity. ---- Add to this
that undocumented migrants are without rights, without income and without hope of access to the benefits offered by the State. For them and
for them, there is no free access to care and no other way to survive than to seek means of subsistence.
For these populations, the current health crisis is becoming a veritable health bomb. For themselves and themselves abandoned to the threat
of the virus but also for the whole of society.
The only solution to defuse this bomb, save those who are threatened and thus protect all of society, is the immediate implementation of the
following measures:
Systematic tests carried out in homes, official or not, by organizations independent of the prefecture and managers ensuring confidence and
confidentiality for those concerned with their agreement
Isolation of contaminated people in decent places in consultation with groups of undocumented migrants and residents or associations chosen
by those concerned
Mass distribution of masks, gloves and gels in homes
Immediate closure of Administrative Detention Centers (CRA)
Immediate opening of places without conditions of papers and income to allow accommodation and a collective life respecting physical distance.
Suspension of rents during the entire confinement period (March, April and May) and clearance of unpaid rents
Unconditional regularization of all undocumented migrants with right to social income, right to partial unemployment measures for those who
worked and free access to health.
These yesterday's demands for justice and equality are also today imperative sanitary necessities beyond which all the talk against the
spread of the coronavirus is in vain.
The calls to imitate the regularization measure adopted by Portugal are a step in the right direction. But it is essential for this measure
to be effective that it applies, without conditions, to all undocumented migrants and migrants.
To this end, we will support all the actions decided by residents of homes, people detained in CRAs and undocumented migrants and to defend
their right to life which is also our right to life.
We call to participate in initiatives that will be taken on 1 stMay on the occasion of the International Day of workers and are wearing
these claims.
We are calling for a day of demonstrations on Saturday 30 May in accordance with the conditions and taking measures of physical distance.
180 first signatory organizations and more than 1000 signatories to join on https://www.change.org/Bombe-sanitaire-Sans-Papiers-Appel-30 mai :
Collectives of undocumented migrants and residents of hostels:
CISPM, CSP59, CSP75, CSP Paris 20, CSP93, CSP95, CTSP Vitry, Collectif Schaeffer d'Aubervilliers, COPAF, Rights Before !!,
The March of Solidarity,
And:
Ah Bienvenue Clandestins !, ACDA, ACDR, ACORT, ACTIT, ADTF, AFD International, AFJD, AMDH Nord / France, AMDH-Paris / IDF, AMF, ANC, ANVITA,
APARDAP 38, APCV, APICED, Antiracist Assembly Paris 20, ASIAD , ASTI de Petit-Quevilly, ASTI de Romans, Association Les Oranges, ATMF,
Attac, Attac 35, Attac Strasbourg, autremonde, Bagagérue, BAN, Baobab, BDS France Paris, CADTM-France, CAPJPO-EuroPalestine, CEDETIM, Cercle
de silence Hazebrouck, Chemins Pluriels, CIBELE, Cimade 35, Cisem 38, CIVCR, CNAFAL, CNT-FTE, CNT-Solidarité Ouvrière, COBIAC Lebanon,
Collective November 10 against Islamophobia, Collective 20 e Solidaire avec les migrants, Collectif Bienvenue MigrantEs 34, Public Services
and Social Rights Defense Collective Choisy-Thiais-Orly, Loire Collective " So that nobody sleeps in the street", Collective Ni Guerre Ni
Etat de Guerre, Collective Palestine in Resistances, Collective"Pays Viganais Terre d'Accueil", Collective Refugees of Vaucluse, Collective
Romeurope of Val Maubuée, Collective supporting refugees Ariège, Collective of support for Sans-papiers du Trégor, Collective of support of
EHESS for undocumented migrants and migrants, Collective Vigilance for the rights of foreigners Paris 12 e , Antiracism Committee of
Gérardmer, Solidarity Committee with strikes and resistance, Vigilance Committee on the Law of Foreigners of Montbéliard, NAJE Company,
CORENS, CRLDHT, Decolonizing the arts, DAL, DIEL, DNSI 67, DNSI 86, Ecodrom93, Ecole Thot, Emancipation Lyon-69, Emancipation tendency
intersyndicale, Ensemble!, General States of Migrations of Rouen, EELV Paris 18, ETM 31-46, FASTI, Women Equality, Plural Women, Daughters
and Sons of the Republic, Fondation Copernic, Fondation Frantz Fanon, FI Paris 17, FTCR, FSU35, FUIQP, Gasprom-Asti de Nantes, GAT migrant
refugees FI 35, Solidarity Generations, Yellow Vests Loiret 45, GISTI, Groupe Logement du 14 octobre-Rennes, ICARE 05, Identité Plurielle,
inFLEchir, La Conquête du Pain, Convergence of otters, La Poule at the Golden Eyes, La Révolution est En Marche, L'Auberge des Migrants,
Pariah, Tile Launcher, LDH Châtellerault, LDH 70, LDH Paris 18, Maison Internationale de Rennes, Federal MAN, Modus Operandi (Grenoble),
MRAP, MRAP of Lille, MRAP of Vaucluse, Mouvement Utopia, NPA, OCML-VP, Palestine 13 (AFPS), Workers' Party (Tunisia) - France section, No
street children in Valence,Pas Sans Nous 49, PCF Rennes, PCOF, PEPS, PG Paris 17, PG Paris 18, PIR, Family Planning 35, Africa Europe Faith
& Justice Network, Ritimo Network, Revue d'Etudes Décoloniales, REMCC, RESF 69, RESF mining basin 71, Roya Citoyenne, RUSF Paris 1, RUSF
Paris 8, RUSF 34, SKB, SMG, SNUASFP-FSU, SNPES-PJJ / FSU, Section CGT-Cité Nationale de l'Histoire de Immigration, Solidaires Etudiant-es,
Solidarité and Languages of Valence, Stop Precariousness, SUD Culture, SUD Education 92, SUD Industrie IdF, SUD Social Protection 93, Sun of
Soudan, Survie, Syndicat des Quartiers Populaires de Marseille, TadamunExil 70, TPC Maison Solidaire, All CitizensRESF mining basin 71, Roya
Citoyenne, RUSF Paris 1, RUSF Paris 8, RUSF 34, SKB, SMG, SNUASFP-FSU, SNPES-PJJ / FSU, Section CGT-Cité Nationale de l'Histoire de
Immigration, Solidaires Etudiant- es, Solidarité et Langages de Valence, Stop Precariousness, SUD Culture, SUD Education 92, SUD Industrie
IdF, SUD Social Protection 93, Sun of Soudan, Survie, Syndicat des Quartiers Populaires de Marseille, TadamunExil 70, TPC Maison Solidaire,
All CitizensRESF mining basin 71, Roya Citoyenne, RUSF Paris 1, RUSF Paris 8, RUSF 34, SKB, SMG, SNUASFP-FSU, SNPES-PJJ / FSU, Section
CGT-Cité Nationale de l'Histoire de Immigration, Solidaires Etudiant- es, Solidarité et Langages de Valence, Stop Precariousness, SUD
Culture, SUD Education 92, SUD Industrie IdF, SUD Social Protection 93, Sun of Soudan, Survie, Syndicat des Quartiers Populaires de
Marseille, TadamunExil 70, TPC Maison Solidaire, All CitizensTPC Maison Solidaire, All CitizensTPC Maison Solidaire, All Citizens!, All
Migrants, UD Solidaires Val de Marne, UCL, UJFP, UJR, Union Syndicale Solidaires, United Migrants, UNRPA, UPML, UTAC, Un Toit c'est Un Droit
Rennes, ZEMBRA Echo, ZSP18 ...
Unit appeal published on Mediapart on April 28, 2020
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Foyers-CRA-Sans-papiers-Des-mesures-immediates-contre-la-bombe-sanitaire
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Message: 4
With some people in front of their homes celebrating the 75th anniversary of the ending of World War Two in Europe, while still social
distancing, it's difficult not to have mixed feelings. Marking the defeat of the Hitler regime by allied forces in May 1945 and the ending
of Nazi occupation in Europe with the horrors of the concentration camps cannot be underestimated, given that it was a capitalist war that
was responsible for countless millions of deaths, military and (mostly) civilian. ---- While on one level, it was a victory over Nazism and
fascism, in reality, World War Two was no war against fascism. Indeed, for the imperialist powers such as Britain, the USA and an
expansionist Soviet Union, liberating the Jews from the likes of Bergen-Belsen was purely incidental in their opposition to Nazi Germany's
threat towards their own national and economic interests.
"If I had been an Italian I am sure that I should have been whole-heartedly with you..."
So said Winston Churchill to Mussolini before the war. For the ruling class and their political representatives in various "democratic"
countries, fascism or liberating the Jews was never an issue. Jews had been persecuted in Germany and elsewhere for years before the war
started, and as fascist armies were invading Abyssinia and Libya or murdering the organised working class in Spain, Italy, Germany and
elsewhere (while the "democratic" powers looked on), the horrors of fascism was of little concern... not until it threatened "British
economic interests" or the economic interests of other countries.
And the sad fact remains, that now in 2020, modern far right variants of fascism are still around, still tolerated and on the increase. In
many countries, right wing populist governments (Orban in Hungary, Bolsonaro in Brazil, Duterte in the Philippines, Trump, Johnson), while
not fascist or Nazi, are nevertheless apt to follow a political trajectory which has echoes of fascism.
It's also worth remembering that, since the end of World War Two, constant wars have been pretty much the dominant characteristic of
"democratic" capitalism, as various powers and their proxies have fought across the globe over wealth, resources and strategic interests.
These numerous wars fought in the name of freedom or democracy since 1945 have resulted in untold horror for countless millions. They
continue to this day.
Today, here in Britain, Boris Johnson is keen to portray the Coronavirus pandemic as his very own Churchill moment, with him as the great
patriotic national unity leader (with a compliant Labour opposition) in a "war" against this wicked virus. Never mind the fact that his
government is actually responsible for the unnecessary deaths of thousands, thanks to their botched handling of the current pandemic.
National unity is the bullshit way of saying unity with your bosses, your exploiters and oppressors. In 1939-45, many working class people
found themselves at odds with this national unity (see Pete Grafton's excellent book, You, You and You! ) as we really are not all in the
same boat. Back then, the State was finally forced to make concessions such as establishing the NHS. In some ways, the same applies today,
and we will have to fight against any attempts to force us back to work when the virus is still rampant, and say no to any new austerity
programmes the Johnson regime will try and foist on us, once the crisis is over.
What anarchist communists said on the 50th anniversary
VE DAY? Celebration of mass murder
THIS YEAR MARKS the 75th celebration of both VE-Day and VJ-Day, the Allied Powers' celebration of victory over Nazi Germany and then Japan.
As usual speeches will be given by European and American statesmen in which phrases like "the struggle against Nazism", "the struggle
against fascism", "the liberation of peoples" etc will be liberally peppered. But is this really the truth? Mussolini's rise to power in
1922 made Italy the first fascist country. In 1928 Salazar set up his dictatorship in Portugal. Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933 and
Nazism opened its first concentration camps. In 1939, after the defeat of the Spanish Revolution, Franco established his murderous regime.
During more than 10 years the Great Powers - France, Britain, USA and the supposedly communist USSR maintained political and commercial
relations with these states. All of these powers accommodated themselves, and none of them sanctioned, these regimes. At Munich in September
1938 Chamberlain for Britain and Daladier for France signed an agreement with the Nazi regime, allowing it to occupy the Sudetenland, a part
of Czechoslovakia with a German-speaking population - a rich prize for Germany because of its economic and industrial riches. Even when the
German Army invaded Poland in September 1939 the Allied bourgeoisie did not flinch. The European Allies declared war on Germany, certainly,
but this consisted of a few French units invading Germany to reinforce its first line of defence, the Maginot line (November 1939). The
Western European ruling classes couldn't care less about the rise of Nazism, just as much as they were not bothered by the rise of Francoism
or Salazarism. Order reigned and that was all that concerned them. What they had been worried about was the social unrest and the popular
revolts which had deeply disturbed them since 1917. They were pleased that strong and stable regimes had been installed that would break
working class revolt and resistance.
Chain reaction
The Russian Revolution of 1917 had set off a chain reaction throughout the world - the workers' councils in Germany, followed by those in
Italy and Hungary, and then the revolutionary collectivisations in Spain. These movements were bloodily destroyed and fascist regimes were
installed during or after these defeats. These fascist regimes were to be preferred by the Western allies to the spectre of working class
revolt. Churchill - the great ‘democrat' - who was deeply racist and considered blacks as sub-human - never concealed his admiration for
Mussolini. What was important for Britain was that its trade routes through the Mediterranean to its colonies in the Middle East stayed
open. The fascist regimes installed throughout the Mediterranean area went along with this and the fate of the populations under their
boot-heels were of no concern. The British ruling class refused to welcome refugees from the Spanish ‘civil war'.
France set up concentration camps in the Pyrenees to imprison the Spanish refugees, and these were joined by other refugees from fascism in
Germany, Central and Eastern Europe. The Western allies knew the fate of the populations under Nazi and Fascist domination, whether in
Ethiopia or Poland, and they knew from 1933 that the Nazi regime was oppressing Jews, Communists, homosexuals and gypsies. For its part the
United States continued economic and commercial relations with Germany. even during the blockade decreed by France and Britain. These
continued after the alliance treaty between Germany and Japan. The US traded with everyone, no matter who they were. They entered the War
after Pearl Harbour (December 1941) not to ‘liberate' the populations of Europe but to safeguard their economic interests in both Asia and
Europe.
The Stalinists
The Stalinist bureaucrats were no more ‘anti-fascist' than the Western leaders. The USSR had never stopped trading with Nazi Germany. The
non-aggression pact signed between Hitler and Stalin was linked to an economic agreement: Poland would be carved up between them and Stalin
would take over Lithuania and Estonia. The Jews of the Soviet part of Poland were as much delivered up to the Nazis as those of France. The
Soviet leaders only became ‘antifascist' when the German state broke the pact by invading the USSR in June 1941.
Just another war
The ideology of antifascism was pushed among the working class in order to divert it from its autonomous class objectives and interests.
This mystification allowed the ruling classes of each country to get the allegiance of their populations and to turn them into cannon
fodder. Under the banners of anti-fascism and the defence of threatened democracy, the managers of capitalism stopped at nothing - 38
million dead to defend their interests! The Dresden bombing, the Atom bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki! The entry of the Allies into
the War was only motivated by the need to stop at all costs the new powers that were emerging in this period of world economic crisis (the
Wall Street Crash in 1929). Germany, Italy, Japan menaced the vital interests of the Western ruling classes and their colonial empires, that
is, the sources of raw materials necessary for their economies. The new powers needed these resources and natural wealth in order to develop
their own economies. Out of this crisis sprang a new world order: the USA (the West) versus the USSR (the East). Once the war was over, the
victors concentrated on oppressing and massacring the populations who refused their new order. For example, the French murdered up to 80,000
in 1947 during the insurrections in Madagascar, many through being gunned down, many more through hunger caused by French blockades of the
insurgent areas. In May 1945, just after the Allies had won in Europe, repression began in Algeria which resulted in the deaths of up to
45,000 murdered by the French. In the repression unleashed by the British in Kenya in 1956, 10,000 were killed and 90,000 interned in prison
camps. Each of these powers in its own colonial or neo-colonial sphere of influence, set up dictatorial regimes as bloody as each other, who
defended the interests of their ‘antifascist and democratic' masters to the detriment of the working class and peasantry world-wide.
Adapted from Organise! Magazine of the Anarchist Communist Federation, April-June 1995
What anarchists said in 1945
It is obvious that, after the neurotic outbursts of relief on VE-Day, the people of Britain are rapidly coming to realise just how phoney
the peace is. Already, on the morrow of so-called victory, food rations have been cut once again, and we are informed that fewer clothes
will be available, while cigarettes have gone into short supply. "Peace", for the time being at any rate, seems to be a leaner condition
than war, and, in the meantime, the process of release from military and industrial conscription appears to be scheduled to last for a good
many years before it is finally ended. Meanwhile, the housing shortage becomes steadily more acute, and the tensions within industry, which
were largely suppressed by such collaborationist institutions as the joint production committees, are steadily coming to a head.
After six years of war the workers expect something concrete. They are not likely to be put off for very long with such sops as the ending
of the blackout, the abolition of the regulation against leaving oars in boats, or the granting of small quantities of petrol to
middle-class car-owners. Already the incidence of strikes in industry has risen, and sympathy for the strikers seems much greater than it
was during the war itself. A wide movement of direct action, which might well assume other forms than strikes, is what the leaders of all
parties fear most of all, because it is the only kind of movement which can directly menace their own power and interests. Therefore they
are prepared at all costs to divert the people from such actions, and an election, which gives the illusion of making a change in the
existing set-up, and gives the ordinary man the feeling that he is actually doing something positive towards improving his conditions, is an
obvious manoeuvre of this kind. It is a fair certainty that the pretence of party struggle which an election arouses will provide a
compensation for direct action which will stave off trouble for at least some months after the election.
Vote, What For? From Freedom, anarchist weekly, June 2nd 1945
https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2020/05/08/ve-day-75-years-on/
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Message: 5
Over the past month, employees are increasingly asking about the rules for appointing a Workers' Council and Crew Representatives. We see
that employers with which these institutions have not yet operated organize the election of Crew Representatives to push through the new
work regulations and the salary reductions contained therein. ---- It is needed by the employer to conclude agreements on the application of
less favorable employment conditions for employees than those resulting from employment contracts (Article 231a of the Code of Civil
Procedure). That is why some employers are organizing the election of Crew Representatives at a rapid pace - even by groups on Facebook.
Employees are questioning the correctness of this type of choices, if only because of the fact that not every employee has a Facebook account.
The issue of elections to Employee Councils is governed by art. 8 clause 1 of the Act of April 7, 2006 on informing and consulting
employees. The provisions of the Act apply to employers engaged in economic activities employing at least 50 employees.
However, these provisions do not require the employer to form a Council. They are only required to allow elections. The Act on the
"Anti-Crisis Shield" allows the conclusion of an agreement with the so-called Crew representatives. This is a separate institution. Crew
representatives may be selected on the basis of the rules adopted by the given employer. They must be 2 people. There is not even a
requirement that the elections be secret. So it is obvious that such employee representation is the worst of all possible - except with the
exception of the unions formed by employers or management.
In accordance with art. 15g paragraph 12 "Shield", the employer has 5 working days to provide the National Labor Inspectorate agreement.
However, PIP does not go into the mode of selecting employee representatives.
Election of members of the Employee Council is completely different. Employee Council elections are organized by the employer at the written
request of a group of at least 10% of employees. The employer is obliged to notify employees about the date of the elections and to submit
candidates for members of the Employee Council, notifying the date of the elections and the date of submission of candidates. Elections to
the Employee Council may not take place earlier than 30 days after the day on which the employer notifies the employees about the date of
the election. The deadline for submitting candidates for members of the Employee Council is 21 days (Article 8 of the Act).
Employees propose candidates in writing, and in the case of a company with up to 100 employees, the candidate must be nominated by at least
10 employees, and in the case of a company with more than 100 employees, a group of at least 20 employees. The Employee Council must consist
of three employees for a company with between 50 and 250 employees; 5 if it employs between 251 and 500 employees, and 7 if it employs over
500 employees.
Elections are held by secret ballot. If at least 50% of the employees have participated, they are valid, and if not - after 30 days the
elections are held again. The next election is considered valid regardless of the turnout.
Not everyone has a passive electoral right - that is, the right to stand as a candidate. Deprived of this right are: persons in charge of
the workplace, their deputies, employees of the collective management bodies of the workplace, chief accountants and legal advisers.
The Association of Polish Syndicalists has been observing for years that employers often circumvent the law, also in this field. If you are
suspected of the correctness of conducting the election, it is worth checking to see if it happened by accident. We try to act where the
salaries have been reduced after an agreement with illegally elected representatives.
We would like to remind you that the Employee Council is an instrument that provides fewer opportunities than a trade union and if you do
not already have a union in the workplace, you should act and defend your interests. Unfortunately, it seems certain that many employers now
intend to worsen working conditions and there are indications that this will be permanent. It is all the more important to oppose this now,
using all available means.
For more information, write to the Association of Polish Syndicalists at: info@zsp.net.pl
https://zsp.net.pl/fikcyjne-%E2%80%9Erady-pracownikow%E2%80%9D
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Message: 6
It's hard to write about COVID 19 from Madrid, one of the hardest hit cities in the world. The death toll is only in the area bigger than
the whole of China. Officials say for a slow improvement, but The result is that people continue to die every day. People I know from my
neighborhood have died. Others are seriously ill, including union members. It's hard. We all want it to end. ---- Feelings of isolation and
frustration are common to lockdown. The children are closed inside for more than a month. Their stress and anxiety are manifested in various
ways. At the very least, they don't understand what's going on. The quarantine was imposed hard and we really didn't save it. Many families
live in crowded apartments or with a lack of hygiene and experience it even worse. It's really hard and we all want it to end.
Our jobs and lives are gone. More than 3,000,000 workers in Spain have been temporarily laid off, with 800 jobs being lost in March alone.
Critical areas of the economy (tourism, hotels) are collapsing and the outlook is bleak. The picture is similar around the world. This will
become even more difficult and it does not seem to end quickly.
Meanwhile, the issues of our society that we faced before the current crisis
is still here. Inequality, poverty and exploitation exist uncontrollably in the universe, the regime of power and populist xenophobia are
not gone. Also, global warming and its consequences continue to accelerate.
When that is over, when COVID 19 finally leaves, we need to get back to work
repair of this shattered world. The years we have spent and the collective experience is a wake-up call. It is now clear that ignoring or
denying these global issues is dangerous for us. We can try so hard to keep them out of our minds, to keep going as if nothing is happening,
but they will come back to knock on our door.
There is no going back to normalcy. We should not return to normalcy. We do not believe that the state and politicians (any state and
politicians) will give us security, because it is obvious that they will not do it. Throughout the liberal economic bourgeoisie of eternal
development, we do not sting, because there is nothing like it. We do not exchange our lives for meaningless work for endless hours. We do
not hand over our collective decisions, enabling bureaucrats to be elected to the polls.
The fear is strong and the pandemic is frightening. There is a possibility that many are ready
to deliver rights and freedoms, hopes and aspirations to promises of safety and health. But the only way to cure fear is through trust.
Confidence in ourselves, in our collective strength, mutual aid and solidarity with each other. To make mutual aid and solidarity effective,
to feel this warmth in our lives, to bond to tackle global issues, we must build strong organizations that will bring us together. These can
be base associations, links
tenants, anti-austerity groups, revolutionary campaign for it
environment, feminist collectives, or whatever. All this and much more is needed to equip the opportunities in the revolutionary base we
need. Only the people save the people.
Well, we're not going back to normal. Become a fighter this season!
Miguel Perez, ICL's secretary
1 Social control and authoritarian regimes
There has been a growing number of authoritarian regimes in recent decades, more or less mixing political freedoms with the capitalist
market. Examples of this assessment are China, but there are others, such as Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, etc. At the same time, populism
is on the rise everywhere. Not only in developed countries where the etiology of immigration is often used as a general shift in the
political spectrum of the right, but also in places like India.
Meanwhile, the state and companies are monitoring the citizens, while consumers have accepted this normality all over the world.
The crisis of COVID 19 has other implications for these developments. They are honest
It is obvious that the ability to reduce the spread of the disease is very different across countries.
Probably no one has succeeded as much as South Korea, perhaps even China, given their data and official management. Unlike Italy, Spain and
the USA. which are the opposite and expect a higher number of deaths than anywhere else in the world.
There are many reasons for this and each case is unique. An in-depth discussion is beyond the scope of this text. However, what can be said
with certainty is that many will point to the surveillance and control that many Asian states impose on citizens. Also the fact that an
authoritarian government like that of China can quickly introduce and impose tougher measures at the beginning of the escalation.
A possible outcome of the health crisis in general is a widespread acceptance of it
more authoritarian regime and of course more state surveillance. There are already voices pointing in that direction. The use of power by
South Korea
face recognition, tracking applications, mobile phone registrations, etc. to find infected people, they can make these developments more
digestible to many in the future. When life is in danger, discussions become inactive and fear becomes a powerful motivator.
But these surveillance tools are some of the backbone of the modern
authoritarian system. The others are time-tested, such as the physical repression of opponents. Combined with the rapidly growing
nationalist policy of xenophobic populism, miserable maintenance, pseudo-communist dictatorships and theocratic governments, the barrel of
gunpowder is about to explode from time to time.
It seems we need to get information from the Hong Kong insurgents about how
we must safeguard our movements against mass surveillance and state repression.
2 Discovering the old ways
There is no question that the health crisis is going to impose a global economy.
What has already begun, we will see it expand in the coming months. The predictions are horrible. You don't have to be a Nobel Prize-winning
economist to understand that millions of workers lose their jobs and companies that go bankrupt around the world can quickly lead to the
collapse of banks, stock exchanges and the financial world in general.
This prospect frightens governments, following in the footsteps of the 2008 recession. There were so many who were willing to gamble their
lives for the sake of preserving the economy. Think of the United States, the United Kingdom, etc. This failed and everyone ran to get the
check checks of the trillions of packages. The money that could not be found during the last years of cuts and authoritarian measures was
suddenly found and is ready to be generously distributed. Our comrades from USI in Italy have already pointed out the effects of the cuts in
the health system in their country and the effects of the current crisis. The same can be said for other countries.
We have experienced this again. After 2008 the financial crash in the middle of a celebration
Calling for capitalist reform, millions were used to save banks and other businesses. Discussions quickly faded from memory, the owners of
large companies raised money, thanked and let the workers lift the weight of their own rescue through cuts and authoritarianism. Nothing
happened beyond the worst working and living conditions for workers.
Most likely all of these billions of rescue packages will be used to save on oil wells, air travel, shipping, coal-fired power plants,
cattle farming in the rainforest, cheap plastic plants, cheap plastic, hitec hardware companies, "providing" more and more advanced
products. as before. Indeed, this is the plan. Let's go back to normal as soon as possible, pretending that COVID 19 did not exist and
ignoring the global problems that existed.
However, this pandemic has shown that closing our eyes to the fact that our societies are good does not really work. Going out into everyday
life and work, hoping that experts and politicians will keep us safe is not a viable strategy. It never was, but now no one can deny it. The
health crisis is a wake-up call to realize that we are in deep shit!
3 Funding the next crisis.
Some have pointed out the benefits of the environmental crisis. The levels
Infection is low, animals and plants exploit natural areas deserted by humans during quarantine. Certainly, if everyone tends to consider
these developments good news, in a humanitarian crisis it is rather short-sighted. The end result may be worse than that. These changes are
only temporary. States and governments already have plans to relax environmental protection, that is, to reject sustainability plans, for
the sake of economic recovery. That means new coal-fired power plants will quickly boost cheap energy for factories or more oil rigs and
subsidized fuel for air travel and shipping, to name but a few. Still, calculating the reduced demand due to the economic downturn,
The point is that global warming and the collapse of the environment
continue unabated. They didn't stop with the quarantine, because no one cares. The ice continues to melt slowly, the sea level rises and the
forests burn.
Some study the link between increased pandemics and human encroachment on natural areas and their degradation.
But the immediate environmental consequence is not just desertification.
Economic inequality, poverty and exploitation continue to be a scourge for all communities around the world. The effects of the health
crisis can be devastating for them. Not just in terms of access to medical care, although this is definitely a factor. For example, COVID 19
has already become widespread and is deadly in the slumped communities, mostly blacks, in the United States. the world. From North America
to South America, from Europe to Asia, there is a working class that will feel (already feel) the effects of the economic collapse.
If the 2008 crisis is over, jobs and livelihoods will be lost, wages will fall, evictions and homelessness will increase and working
conditions will get worse. Poor communities in developing countries face the prospect of starvation, while social exclusion can spread to
all parts of the world. Meanwhile, bosses and business owners will receive generous subsidies from governments and taxpayers' money and will
certainly find ways to pocket them. Undoubtedly, inequality rises after every economic crisis.
4 Only the people save the people
Our comrades from FORA Argentina said it clearly (https: //www.icl-
cit.org/argentina-about-coronavirus-and-the-working-class/). Don't give exorbitant amounts to support packages to our bosses. Give employees
the money and we will take care of ourselves and our communities!
The communities are facing the prospect of economic and ecological disaster
they can use the money to set up alternative ways to manage resources, not according to the interests of shareholders, but according to
those of people who respect the environment and fight inequality and social exclusion. At this time no one disagrees with the fact that
people need a better health system, adequate housing and hygiene for all, guaranteed access to education, sustainable forms of energy,
decent living conditions.
None of this will be achieved by rescuing competing companies, which benefit from environmental pollution, exploiting workers and
distributing bonuses and dividends. Nor by giving money to consumers so that they can go out and spend. The "go and buy something nice on
your own" approach, which follows Trump's management in the face of a deadly crisis system, is the best example of a market mentality that
downplays social problems in individual consumer choices. It's like exorcising the virus by buying new clothes or cars.
No. Social and structural issues require social and structural solutions. None of these
It will not happen if governments manage uncontrollably and throw three trillion to save a weak economy directly or through the
encouragement of consumers to spend. Dramatic and lasting changes must be made. So drastic that they could be revolutionary. A revolutionary
transformation without a state, governments, company owners or politicians, who are reluctant or unable to implement.
In the coming months and years, it is up to us global workers to
plan a way out. Considering the many issues we need to address, this seems daunting. Collaborating by building integrated decentralized
movements, based on solidarity and mutual aid, developing strong organizations, international links and networks, is something that the
collective intelligence of millions of people can accomplish. We are a strong force. With tools at our disposal for interconnection,
communication and sharing, nothing stops us. In the current situation we feel scared and depressed about the future, it is natural, if we
only see the solution in politicians or businessmen. We workers, the unemployed, the retired, the students, the immigrants are collectively
able to chart a path forward.
However, solidarity and mutual assistance need appropriate organizations to go beyond individual charitable action and become a social force
in itself, with unlimited potential for transformation. Environmental protection cannot be based on consumer choices, such as "green"
laundry companies, and governments want to make us believe. Radical ecological groups are required to take action.
Women's equality is not just about passing laws. A proper culture is required of women and men in the fight against sexism in everyday life.
Xenophobia, racism and aggressive nationalism will not go away until we chase them out of our streets.
Finally, the deadly viruses of inequality, poverty and exploitation will continue to
dominate the international order as much as we allow ourselves to be dominated by the forces of capitalist globalization. With respect,
anarcho-syndicalist and revolutionary unions, which are the tools at our disposal, we must counterattack and defend workers' rights. This
will be crucial in the coming months of the economic slowdown, but workers are not ready to bear the burden of the crisis once again. Not
only that.
They are also a key part of any movement for social and economic transformation.
Parts of the revolutionary trade unions in the workplace from the ground up, from these workers who can reshape production, make it serve
their real needs. They are structural elements of an economy that protects our lives, our lives and not our profits. Only the people save
the people. We will save ourselves. The common and global issues we need to address are many and complex. We all need to be at the table.
Now we are not looking at the other way. This time become a fighter.
International Confederation of Labour
International Labor Confederation
(International anarcho-syndicalist organization in which ESE also participates)
https://ese.espiv.net/2020/05/08/icl-cit-koronoios-as-mi-gyrisoyme-stin-kanonikotita/
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