#Worldwide #Information #Blogger #LucSchrijvers: PART1 #Update: #anarchist #information from all over the #world MONDAY 25.06.2020

Today's Topics:

   
1.  anarkismo.net: The guillotine at work by Dmitri (ed.) - MACG
      (personal capacity) (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  France, Union Communiste Libertaire AL #305 - Syndicalism,
      Metallurgy: Let's change the air, let's socialize Luxfer ! (fr,
      it, pt)[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  ait russia: Chile: The Hunger Riots [machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
4.  US, black rose fed: Towards a History of Anarchist
      Anti-Imperialism: Only the Workers and Peasants Will Go All the
      Way (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
5.  HEALTH THROUGH THE REVOLUTION, REVOLUTION 
     THROUGH HEALTH
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
6.  Greece, APO: In the face of the global health crisis: state
      and capitalism are not the solution, solidarity is the only way
      out [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1



The guillotine at work - The anarchists in the Russian revolution and the Leninist counter-revolution - Translation: George Martikas -
Editing: Costas Despiniadis. Panoptikon Publications, Thessaloniki, May 2020. ---- "Why should one survive if it is not to survive for those
who have not survived?" V. Serz wonders in the Memoirs of a Revolutionary. ---- So one had to record those times, the dead had to speak,
their memory, their works, their hopes, their anxieties, their testimonies had to be saved, so that they would not be lost in the gloomy
abyss of oblivion. This is what Maximov is doing with this book. He is trying to save the past of the October Revolution as he and his
Anarchist comrades did. ---- The October Revolution is not the subject of a hagiographic exaggeration, it does not have a mythical cover, it
is an event of world-historical significance that eventually degenerated and suffered political, social and moral destruction. Maximov
describes the seeds of this development, decisively different from those "uniformed intellectuals" who, as historians, were not interested
in understanding the past but in the skilful manipulation of the present; critics of the present and believed that people can freely change
the past at will since they believed that the difference between truth and falsehood is not objective Other simple strength, cunning and
enforcement.

In his work, Maximov - who dedicates himself to the Russian people's struggle for freedom, humanity and justice - reminds us of the
ubiquitous need for freedom and ensures that the actions of his undefeated comrades who fought to the end are not lost. do not let
revolutionary ideas fall into words without content.

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31897

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Message: 2



The Luxfer factory in Gerzat (Puy-de-Dôme) was, until it closed in May 2019, the only one in the European Union to produce medical oxygen
bottles. Despite the health crisis and the long struggle of employees against the closure of the site, the State still refuses to
nationalize the company. Faced with capitalist appetites and the negligence of the public authorities, the socialization of the enterprise
under the control of the workers is a necessity. ---- Despite the government's refusal to requisition Luxfer, Axel Peronczyk, CGT delegate
for the factory, did not disarm: " For us, the struggle continues. It has never stopped since the plant was announced to close in November
2018. We will not let go of the deal, we value this factory and its unique know-how that made us proud. I hope these refusals will be the
last. "

Renowned for their lightness and resistance, these oxygen cylinders are found in ambulances, fire trucks, hospitals and even in retirement
homes for respiratory assistance and oxygen therapy. It is an essential product for the medical sector, particularly in a pandemic situation.

A shortage would be catastrophic. However, this does not seem to move the government, which closes the door on any possibility of a recovery
under public capital, while the human and technical know-how are still there. It is this same government, through the Ministry of Labor,
which decided in 2019 to validate the economic motive used by management to close the factory, overriding the opinions of the Labor
Inspectorate and the General Directorate of Labor .

A textbook case on capitalist irrationality
The case of the Gerzat factory alone illustrates the irrationality of the capitalist system and the impasse in which it leads us. The
flagship of the Luxfer group - which acquired it in 2007 - renowned for the quality of its products and the existence of a research center,
the Gerzat site was particularly profitable to the point of being the second most the group's most profitable, with a record 2017 in terms
of profits (+ 55%). However, this was not enough to satisfy the appetites of Luxfer group shareholders, representatives of investment funds
managing several hundred billion assets.

Axel Peronczyk sums up the reasons for the closure of the plant as follows: " The Luxfer group is in a virtual monopoly on the aluminum gas
cylinder market. His strategy to make even more profit was to take the whole market by the throat by creating a shortage on high-end
products in order to force customers[mostly linked to the State ...]to reorient themselves towards its low-end steel-based products, which
are cheaper to manufacture. Luxfer then raised the price of these products by 12 %, in order to further increase its margins. "

A typical case of abuse of a dominant position, in theory prohibited, but in fact inevitable: the formation of private monopolies is
inherent in the capitalist logic of accumulation and concentration of wealth. It is done to the detriment of employees, medical staff and
patients - steel cylinders have a shorter lifespan and can degrade the gas contained.

Behind the closure of the site, dark calculations of the shareholder to increase its margins, at the expense of quality, and by abusing its
dominant position on the market.
A workers' cooperative project
For almost two years, ex-employees have worked hard to maintain activity and jobs. They first tried to convince the management of the
company by playing on its ground - supporting figures and expertise - to show them that it was three times more profitable to invest in
staff training and in new productions the money she planned to spend to close the factory. Then they looked for a buyer, without success,
most of the potential buyers having neither the desire nor the means to confront the giant Luxfer.

Then 55 workers, much less reluctant, set up a cooperative society project. Each would have put out of his pocket and the rest of the
necessary capital would have been provided by certain local authorities and by the investment fund of the Regional Union of Scop
Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. However, the project was difficult since Luxfer prohibited them from selling on 93% of the gas cylinder markets...

To definitively condemn any takeover project, by a competitor or by the employees, Luxfer decided, in January 2020, to break the working
tool. This was without counting on the fighting spirit of the workers who erected barricades in front of the factory to prevent this
(illegal) destruction and to prevent, in the process, the wild spillage of thousands of liters of industrial oil which would have threatened
the water table ...

The plant was occupied for fifty-three days, until the containment of March 17. The keys were then handed over by the employees to the
prefecture of Puy-de-Dôme who promised to " protect " the site during this period.

Nationalization, yes but ...
But handing over the keys did not mean laying down your arms. Ex-employees are fighting today for the State to nationalize the factory and
restart production. It is, from their point of view, the safest way to " take the factory back from Luxfer " according to Axel Peronczyk.
And they especially do not want to hear about no temporary nationalization, the time to inject public money into the factory before putting
it in the hands of the private sector, as usually happens with nationalizations!

All of the CGT's union structures (federation, confederation, interprofessional unions) support the "Luxfer" to advance their file for final
nationalization with the government. The reformist left (LFI, PCF, PS) supports this request to the National Assembly, sometimes with
protectionist and sovereignist overtones.

The nationalization of the factory would have the advantage of maintaining production essential to the health system. But it is not enough.
Nationalization is very often only state property, with the continuity of capitalist governance and management. The democratic requirement
is socialization, which would imply that the enterprise be declared "common good" belonging to the community, and self-managed by the workers.

If we do not arrive there, the recovery in cooperative form would be a first step, despite the limits of such an experience in the context
of the market. It would support the idea of a self-managing socialism organizing work on new bases, without a patron state, consistent with
the needs of the population. Especially since the usefulness of the production is not to be demonstrated (unlike 1939 when the factory
manufactured... shells !). Because restarting production is possible and because we have to end the political and economic leaders who play
with our lives, let's socialize the Luxfer company !

Dadou (UCL Clermont-Ferrand)

OTHER INDUSTRIAL WASTE
Luxfer is in the limelight, but other companies that help fight the disease are closing.

In 2018, the Honeywell group closed its mask manufacturing plant located in Plaintel (Côtes-d'Armor). The site employed 300 workers in 2010,
it was then running at full speed following the H1N1 crisis. The state disengaged, the factory was bought by Honeywell who chained social
plans before destroying the production lines. The regional council is today planning to revive production in the form of a cooperative by
calling on former employees.
The Finnish multinational UPM wants to resell its newsprint factory in Chapelle-Darblay, south of Rouen. This factory could very well evolve
to produce masks. Three days of strikes took place in January for fear of layoffs.
In Lyon, Famar, a subcontractor in the pharmaceutical industry, is the only factory in France producing Nivaquine (based on chloroquine),
given to certain patients with Covid-19. It employs 250 workers. Following the stopping of orders by Sanofi, Merck etc., the Famar group
sold its factories, part was bought by Delpharm, but not the Lyonnais factory, which will no longer have production in July. The Senate is
studying its nationalization.
The Peters Surgical medical equipment factory in Bobigny went on strike in October against the dismissal of 60 of the 134 employees. It is
now running at full speed, but without guarantees for the future.
Grégoire (UCL Orléans)

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Metallurgie-Changeons-d-air-socialisons-Luxfer

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Message: 3



In Chile, against the backdrop of repressive restrictions imposed by the authorities on the pretext of an epidemic, hunger protests began.
People protest against the poverty that "quarantine" dooms them to and demand social assistance. ---- Late Monday night, the sounds of
thundering pots were heard in various areas and neighborhoods of Santiago. On the tower "Telephones" in the center of the Chilean capital,
on the wall of which slogans were projected during the social uprising that broke out in the country last October, the word "Hunger" now
appeared. There were calls on social networks to arrange pan-riots ("Caserolas") against "hunger and poverty", which met with support from
many citizens. ---- Prior to this, in the El Bosque area in the south of Stantiago, about 100 people from morning to evening held protests
against the lack of food and poverty, into which they are plunged by the government quarantine. However, one of the protesters explained to
television that he was "not against quarantine, but against hunger."

In the afternoon, local media reported about the arson of a bus in the central district of Estacion Central and small barricades erected in
other areas of the capital.

The events in El Bosque became the first confrontation with the police after a total quarantine was introduced in Santiago on Friday. After
the protesters erected burning barricades and blocked traffic on several streets in the area, a squad of carabinieri tried to disperse them
with water cannons, but the protests continued at other points.

The President announced on May 17 the allocation of 2.5 million sets of food, detergents and hygiene products to the most needy. He promised
that 70% of families would be reached.

https://aitrus.info/node/5479

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Message: 4



Reordering the global hierarchy of wealth, power, and resources are critical questions that any internationalist revolution will face. Often
ignored or obscured, South African author Lucien van der Walt provides a well needed overview of the relationship between anarchism and
anti-colonial struggles. ---- By Lucien van der Walt ---- "In this struggle, only the workers and peasants will go all the way to the end"
---- The anarchist movement has a long tradition of fighting imperialism. This reaches back into the 1860s, and continues to the present
day. From Cuba, to Egypt, to Ireland, to Macedonia, to Korea, to Algeria and Morocco, the anarchist movement has paid in blood for its
opposition to imperial domination and control. However, whilst anarchists have actively participated in national liberation struggles, they
have argued that the destruction of national oppression and imperialism can only be truly achieved through the destruction of both
capitalism and the state system, and the creation of an international anarcho-communist society.

This is not to argue that anarchists absent themselves from national liberation struggles that do not have such goals. Instead, anarchists
stand in solidarity with struggles against imperialism on principle, but seek to reshape national liberation movements into social
liberation movements.

Such movements would be both anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist, would be based on internationalism rather than narrow chauvinism, would
link struggles in the imperial centers directly to struggles in the oppressed regions, and would be controlled by, and reflect the interests
of, the working class and peasantry.

In other words, we stand in solidarity with anti-imperialist movements, but condemn those who use such movements to advance reactionary
cultural agendas (for example, those who oppose women's rights in the name of culture) and fight against attempts by local capitalists and
the middle class to hijack these movements. We oppose state repression of anti-imperialist movements, as we reject the right of the state to
decide what is, and what is not, legitimate protest. However, it is no liberation if all that changes is the colour or the language of the
capitalist class.

Against Nationalism
This is where we differ from the political current that has dominated national liberation movements since the 1940s: the ideology of
nationalism.

Nationalism is a political strategy that argues that the key task of the anti-imperialist struggle is to establish an independent
nation-state. It is through these independent states, nationalists argue, that the nation as a whole will exercise its general will. In the
words of Kwame Nkrumah, who spearheaded the formation of the independent nation-state of Ghana, the task was to "Seek ye first the political
kingdom, and all else shall be given unto you."

In order to achieve this goal, nationalists argue that it is necessary to unite all classes within the oppressed nation against the
imperialist oppressor. Nationalists tend to deny the importance of class differences within the oppressed nation, arguing that the common
experience of national oppression makes class divisions unimportant, or that class is a "foreign" concept that is irrelevant.

Thus nationalists seek to hide class differences in a quest to found an independent nation-state.

The class interests that hide behind nationalism are obvious. Nationalism has, historically, been an ideology developed and championed by
the bourgeoisie and middle class in the oppressed nation. It is a form of anti-imperialism that wishes to remove imperialism but retain
capitalism, a bourgeois anti-imperialism that wishes, in short, to create for the local bourgeoisie more space, more opportunities, more
avenues to exploit the local working class and develop local capitalism.

Our role as anarchists in relation to nationalists is thus clear: we may fight alongside nationalists for limited reforms and victories
against imperialism but we fight against the statism and capitalism of the nationalists.

Our role is to win mass support for the anarchist approach to imperial domination, to win workers and peasants away from nationalism and to
an internationalist working class programme: anarchism. This requires active participation in national liberation struggles but political
independence from the nationalists. National liberation must be differentiated from nationalism, which is the class programme of the
bourgeoisie: we are against imperialism, but also, against nationalism.

Bakunin and the First International
Support for national liberation follows directly from anarchism's opposition to hierarchical political structures and economic inequality,
and advocacy of a freely constituted international confederation of self-administrating communes and workers' associations. At the same
time, however, anarchism's commitment to a general social and economic emancipation means that anarchism rejects statist solutions to
national oppression that leave capitalism and government in place.

If anyone can be named the founder of revolutionary anarchism, it is Mikhail Bakunin (1918-1876). Bakunin's political roots lay within the
national liberation movements of Eastern Europe, and he retained a commitment to what would nowadays be called ‘decolonization' throughout
his life. When Bakunin moved from pan-Slavic nationalism towards anarchism in the 1860s, following the disastrous 1863 Polish insurrection,
he still argued in support of struggles for national self-determination.

He doubted whether "imperialist Europe" could keep the colonial countries in bondage: "Two-thirds of humanity, 800 million Asiatics asleep
in their servitude will necessarily awaken and begin to move."[1]Bakunin went on to declare his "strong sympathy for any national uprising
against any form of oppression," stating that every people "has the right to be itself .... no one is entitled to impose its costume, its
customs, its languages and its laws."[2]

East Europe
The crucial issue, however, "in what direction and to what end" will the national liberation movement move? For Bakunin, national liberation
must be achieved "as much in the economic as in the political interests of the masses": if the anti- colonial struggle is carried out with
"ambitious intent to set up a powerful State" or if "it is carried out without the people" and "must therefore depend for success on a
privileged class," it will become a "retrogressive, disastrous, counter-revolutionary movement."[3]

"Every exclusively political revolution - be it in defence of national independence or for internal change.... - that does not aim at the
immediate and real political and economic emancipation of people will be a false revolution. Its objectives will be unattainable and its
consequences reactionary."[4]

So, if national liberation is to achieve more than simply the replacement of foreign oppressors by local oppressors, the national liberation
movement must thus be merged with the revolutionary struggle of the working class and peasantry against both capitalism and the State.
Without social revolutionary goals, national liberation will simply be a bourgeois revolution.

The national liberation struggle of the working class and peasantry must be resolutely anti-statist, for the State was necessarily the
preserve of a privileged class, and the state system would continually recreate the problem of national oppression: "to exist, a state must
become an invader of other states .... it must be ready to occupy a foreign country and hold millions of people in subjection."

The national liberation struggle of oppressed nationalities must be internationalist in character as it must supplant obsessions with
cultural difference with universal ideals of human freedom, it must align itself with the international class struggle for "political and
economic emancipation from the yoke of the State" and the classes it represents, and it must take place, ultimately, as part of an
international revolution: "a social revolution .... is by its very nature international in scope" and the oppressed nationalities "must
therefore link their aspirations and forces with the aspirations and forces of all other countries."[5]The "statist path involving the
establishment of separate .... States" is "entirely ruinous for the great masses of the people" because it did not abolish class power but
simply changed the nationality of the ruling class.[6]Instead, the state system must be abolished and replaced with a coalition of workplace
and community structures "directed from the bottom up .... according to the principles of free federation."[7]

These ideas were applied in East Europe from the 1870s onwards, as anarchists played an active role in the in 1873 uprisings in Bosnia and
Herzegovina against Austro-Hungarian imperialism. Anarchists also took an active part in the "National Revolutionary Movement" in Macedonia
against the Ottoman Empire. At least 60 gave their lives in this struggle, particularly in the great 1903 revolt.

This tradition of anarchist anti-imperialism was continued 15 years later in the Ukraine as the Makhnovist movement organized a titanic
peasant revolt that not only smashed the German occupation of the Ukraine, and held off the invading Red and White armies until 1921, but
redistributed land, established worker- peasant self-management in many areas, and created a Revolutionary Insurgent Army under
worker-peasant control.

Egypt and Algeria
In the 1870s, too, the anarchists began to organize Egypt, notably in Alexandria, where a local anarchist journal appeared in 1877,[8]and
anarchist group from Egypt was represented at the September 1877 Congress of the "Saint Imier International" (the anarchist faction of the
post-1872 First International).[9]An "Egyptian Federation" was represented at the 1881 International Social Revolutionary Congress by
well-known Errico Malatesta, this time including "bodies from Constantinople and Alexandria."[10]Malatesta, who lived in Egypt as a
political refugee Egypt in 1878 and 1882,[11]became involved in the 1882 "Pasha Revolt" that followed the 1876 take-over of Egyptian
finances by an Anglo-French commission representing international creditors. He arrived specifically to pursue "a revolutionary purpose
connected to the natives' revolt in the days of Arabi Pasha,"[12]and "fought with the Egyptians against the British colonialists."[13]

In Algeria, the anarchist movement emerged in the nineteenth century. The Revolutionary Syndicalist General Confederation of Labor (CGT-SR)
had a section in Algeria. Like other anarchist organizations, the CGT-SR opposed French colonialism, and in a joint statement by the
Anarchist Union, the CGT-SR, and the Association of Anarchist Federations on the centenary of the French occupation of Algeria in 1930,
argued: "Civilization? Progress? We say: murder!"[14]

A prominent militant in the CGT-SR's Algerian section, as well as in the Anarchist Union and the Anarchist Group of the Indigenous
Algerians, was Sail Mohamed (1894-1953), an Algerian anarchist active in the anarchist movement from the 1910s until his death in 1953. Sail
Mohamed was a founder of organizations such as the Association for the Rights of the Indigenous Algerians and the Anarchist Group of the
Indigenous Algerians. In 1929 he was secretary of the "Committee for the Defense of the Algerians against the Provocations of the
Centenary." Sail Mohamed was also editor of the North African edition of the anarchist periodical Terre Libre, and a regular contributor to
anarchist journals on the Algerian question.[15]

Europe and Morocco
Opposition to imperialism was a crucial part of anarchist anti-militarist campaigns in the imperialist centers, which stressed that colonial
wars did not serve the interests of workers but rather the purposes of capitalism.

The General Confederation of Labor (CGT) in France, for example, devoted a considerable part of its press to exposing the role of French
capitalists in North Africa. The first issue of La Bataille Syndicaliste, which appeared on the April 27, 1911, exposed the "Moroccan
syndicate": the "veiled men" who dictated to the ministers and diplomats and sought a war that would boost demand for arms, lands, and rail
and lead to the imposition of tax on the indigenous people.[16]

In Spain, the "Tragic Week" began on Monday, July 26, 1909 when the union, Solidarad Obrero, which was led by a committee of anarchists and
socialists, called a general strike against the call-up of the mainly working class army reservists for the colonial war in Morocco.[17]By
Tuesday, workers were in control of Barcelona, the "fiery rose of anarchism," troop trains had been halted, trams overturned, communications
cut and barricades erected. By Thursday, fighting broke out with government forces, and over 150 workers were killed in the street fighting.

The reservists were embittered by disastrous previous colonial campaigns in Cuba, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico,[18]but the Tragic Week
must be understood as an anti-imperialist uprising situated within a long tradition of anarchist anti-imperialism in Spain. The "refusal of
the Catalonian reservists to serve in the war against the Riff mountaineers of Morocco," "one of the most significant" events of modern
times,[19]reflected the common perception that the war was fought purely in the interests of the Riff mine-owners,[20]and that conscription
was "a deliberate act of class warfare and exploitation from the center."[21]

In 1911, the newly founded, anarcho-syndicalist, National Confederation of Labor (CNT), successor to Solidarad Obrero, marked its birth with
a general strike on the September 16 in support of two demands: defense of the strikers at Bilbao and opposition to the war in
Morocco.[22]Again, in 1922, following a disastrous battle against the forces of Abd el-Krim in Morocco in August, a battle in which at least
10,000 Spanish troops died, "the Spanish people were full of indignation and demanded not only an end to the war but also that those
responsible for the massacre and the politicians who favored the operation in Africa be brought to trial," expressing their anger in riots,
and in strikes in the industrial regions.[23]

Cuba
In the Cuban colonial war (1895-1904), the Cuban anarchists and their unions joined the separatist armed forces, and made propaganda amongst
the Spanish troops. The Spanish anarchists, likewise, campaigned against the Cuban war amongst peasants, workers, and soldiers in their own
country.[24]"All Spanish anarchists disapproved of the war and called on workers to disobey military authority and refuse to fight in Cuba,"
leading to several mutinies amongst draftees.[25]Opposing bourgeois nationalism and statism, the anarchists sought to give the colonial
revolt a social revolutionary character. At its 1892 congress in Cuba, the anarchist Workers' Alliance recommended that the Cuban working
class join the ranks of "revolutionary socialism" and take the path of independence, noting that,

"... it would be absurd for one who aspires to individual freedom to oppose the collective freedom of the people. ..."[26]

When the anarchist Michele Angiolillo assassinated the Spanish President Canovas in 1897 he declared that his act both in revenge for the
repression of anarchists in Spain and retribution for Spain's atrocities in its colonial wars.[27]

In addition to its role in the anti-colonial struggle, the anarchist-led Cuban labor movement played a central role in overcoming divisions
between black, white Cuban, and Spanish-born workers. The Cuban anarchists "successfully incorporated many nonwhites into the labor
movement, and mixed Cubans and Spaniards in it," "fostering class consciousness and helping to eradicate the cleavages of race and ethnicity
among workers."[28]

The Workers Alliance "eroded racial barriers as no union had done before in Cuba" in its efforts to mobilize the "whole popular sector to
sustain strikes and demonstrations."[29]Not only did blacks join the union in "significant numbers," but the union also undertook a fight
against racial discrimination in the workplace. The first strike of 1889, for example, included the demand that "individuals of the colored
race able to work there."[30]This demand reappeared in subsequent years, as did the demand that blacks and whites have the right to "sit in
the same cafes," raised at the 1890 May Day rally in Havana.[31]

The anarchist periodical El Producter, founded in 1887, denounced "discrimination against Afro-Cubans by employers, shop owners and the
administration specifically." And through campaigns and strikes involving the "mass mobilization of people of diverse race and ethnicity,"
anarchist labor in Cuba was able to eliminate "most of the residual methods of disciplining labor from the slavery era" such as "racial
discrimination against non-whites and the physical punishment of apprentices and dependientes."[32]

Mexico, Nicaragua and Augustino Sandino
In Mexico, anarchists led Indian peasant risings such as the revolts of Chavez Lopez in 1869 and Francisco Zalacosta in the 1870s. Later
manifestations of Mexican anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism, such as the Mexican Liberal Party, the revolutionary syndicalist "House of the
Workers of the World" (COM) and the Mexican section of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), Mexican anarchism and revolutionary
syndicalism continually challenged the political and economic dominance of the United States, and opposed racial discrimination against
Mexican workers in foreign-owned enterprises, as well as within the United States.[33]

In the 1910s, the local IWW's focus on "‘bread and butter' issues combined with the promise of future workers' control struck a responsive
chord among workers caught up in a nationalist revolution that sought to regain control from foreigners the nation's natural resources,
productive systems and economic infrastructure."[34]

In Nicaragua, Augustino Cesar Sandino (1895-1934), the leader of the Nicaraguan guerrilla war against the United States' occupation between
1927-33, remains a national icon. Sandino's army's "red and black flag had an anarcho-syndicalist origin, having been introduced into Mexico
by Spanish immigrants."[35]

Sandino's eclectic politics were framed by a "peculiar brand of anarcho-communism,"[36]a "radical anarchist communism"[37]"assimilated ....
in Mexico during the Mexican revolution" where he received "a political education in syndicalist ideology, also known as anarchosyndicalism,
libertarian socialism, or rational communism."[38]

Despite political weaknesses, Sandino's movement, the EDSNN, moved steadily leftwards as Sandino realized that "only the workers and the
peasants will go all the way to the end" in the struggle. There was thus increasing emphasis on organizing peasant co-operatives in the
liberated territories. The US forces were withdrawn in 1933 and the EDSNN largely demobilized. In 1934 Sandino was murdered and the
collectives smashed on the orders of General Somoza, the new, pro-US ruler.

Libya and Eritrea
In Italy in the 1880s and 1890s "anarchists and former anarchists" "were some of the most outspoken opponents of Italian military adventures
in Eritrea and Abyssinia."[39]The Italian anarchist movement followed these struggles with a significant anti-militarist campaign in the
early twentieth century, which soon focussed on the Italian invasion of Libya on September 19, 1911.

Augusto Masetti, an anarchist soldier who shot a colonel addressing troops departing for Libya whilst shouting "Down with the War! Long Live
Anarchy!" became a popular symbol of the campaign; a special issue of the anarchist journal L'Agitatore supporting his action, and
proclaiming, "Anarchist revolt shines through the violence of war," led to a roundup of anarchists. Whilst the majority of Socialist Party
deputies voted for annexation,[40]the anarchists helped organize demonstrations against the war and a partial general strike and "tried to
prevent troop trains leaving the Marches and Liguria for their embarkation points."[41]

The campaign was immensely popular amongst the peasantry and working class[42]and by 1914, the anarchist-dominated front of anti-militarist
groups - open to all revolutionaries - had 20,000 members, and worked closely with the Socialist Youth.[43]

When Prime Minister Antonio Salandra sent troops against anarchist-led demonstrations against militarism, against special punishment
battalions in the army, and for the release of Masetti on the June 7, 1914,[44]he sparked off the "Red Week" of June 1914,[45]a mass
uprising ushered in by a general strike led by anarchists and the Italian Syndicalist Union (USI). Ancona was held by rebels for ten days,
barricades went up in all the big cities, small towns in the Marches declared themselves self-governing communes, and everywhere the revolt
took place "red flags were raised, churches attacked, railways torn up, villas sacked, taxes abolished and prices reduced."[46]The movement
collapsed after the Italian Socialist Party's union wing called off the strike, but it took ten thousand troops to regain control of
Ancona.[47]After Italy entered the First World War in May 1915, the USI and the anarchists maintained a consistently anti-war,
anti-imperialist position, continuing into 1920, when they launched a mass campaign against the Italian invasion of Albania and against
imperialist intervention against the Russian Revolution.[48]

Ireland and James Connolly
In Ireland, to cite another case, the revolutionary syndicalists James Connolly and Jim Larkin sought to unite workers across sectarian
religious divides in the 1910s, aiming at transforming the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union, which they led, into a revolutionary
"One Big Union."[49]Socialism was to be brought about through a revolutionary general strike: "they who are building up industrial
organizations for the practical purposes of to-day are at the same time preparing the framework of the society of the future .... the
principle of democratic control will operate through the workers correctly organized in .... Industrial Unions, and the .... the political,
territorial state of capitalist society will have no place or function...."[50]

A firm anti-imperialist, Connolly opposed the nationalist dictum that "labor must wait," and that independent Ireland must be capitalist:
what would be the difference in practice, he wrote, if the unemployed were rounded up for the "to the tune of ‘St. Patrick's Day'" whilst
the bailiffs wore wear "green uniforms and the Harp without the Crown, and the warrant turning you out on the road will be stamped with the
arms of the Irish Republic"?[51]In the end, he insisted, "the Irish question is a social question, the whole age-long fight of the Irish
people against their oppressors resolves itself, in the final analysis into a fight for the mastery of the means of life, the sources of
production, in Ireland."[52]

Connolly was skeptical of the very ability of the national bourgeoisie to consistently fight against imperialism, writing it off as a
sentimental, cowardly, and anti-labor bloc, and he opposed any alliance with this layer: the once-radical middle class have "bowed the knee
to Baal, and have a thousand economic strings .... binding them to English capitalism as against every sentimental or historic attachment
drawing them toward Irish patriotism," and so, "only the Irish working class remain as the incorruptible inheritors of the fight for freedom
in Ireland."[53]Connolly was executed in 1916 following his involvement in the Easter Rising, which helped spark the Irish War of
Independence of 1919-1922, one of the first successful secessions from the British Empire.

Anarchist Revolution in Korea
A final example bears mentioning. The anarchist movement emerged in East Asia in the early twentieth century, where it exerted a significant
influence in China, Japan and Korea. With the Japanese annexation of Korea in 1910, opposition to the occupation developed in both Japan and
in Korea, and spilled over into China. In Japan, the prominent anarchist Kotoku Shusui was framed and executed in July 1910, in part because
his Commoner's Newspaper campaigned against Japanese expansionism.[54]

For the Korean anarchists, the struggle for decolonization assumed center-stage in their political activity: they played a prominent part in
the 1919 rising against Japanese occupation, and in 1924 formed the Korean Anarchist Federation on the basis of the "Korean Revolution
Manifesto" which stated that,

"we declare that the burglar politics of Japan is the enemy for our nation's existence and that it is our proper right to overthrow the
imperialist Japan by a revolutionary means."[55]

The Manifesto made it clear that the solution to this national question was not the creation of a "sovereign national State" but in a social
revolution by the peasants and the poor against both the colonial government and the local bourgeoisie.

Further, the struggle was seen in internationalist terms by the Korean Anarchist Federation, which went on to found an Eastern Anarchist
Federation in 1928, spanning China, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam and other countries, and which called upon "the proletariat of the world,
especially the eastern colonies" to unite against "international capitalistic imperialism." Within Korea itself, the anarchists organized an
underground network, the Korean Anarcho-Communist Federation, to engage in guerrilla activity, propaganda work and trade union organizing.[56]

In 1929, the Korean anarchists founded an armed liberated zone, the Korean People's Association in Manchuria, which brought together two
million guerrillas and Korean peasants on the basis of voluntary farming co-operatives. The Korean People's Association in Manchuria was
able to withstand several years of attacks by Japanese forces and Korean Stalinists backed by the Soviet Union before being forced
underground.[57]Resistance continued throughout the 1930s despite intense repression, and a number of joint Sino-Korean operations were
organized after the Japanese invasion of China in 1937.[58]

In Conclusion: Towards the Destruction of Imperialism
Anarchists cannot be ‘neutral' in any fight against imperialism. Whether it is the struggle against the third world debt, the struggle
against the Israeli occupation of Palestine, or opposition to US military attacks on the Middle East, we are not neutral, we can never be
neutral. We are against imperialism.

But we are not nationalists. We recognize that imperialism is itself rooted in capitalism, and we recognize that simply replacing foreign
elites with local elites will not solve the problem in a way that is fundamentally beneficial for the working class and peasantry.

Establishing new nation-states means, in effect, establishing new capitalist states that, in turn, serve the interests of the local elite at
the expense of the working class and peasantry. Thus, most nationalist movements that have achieved their goals have turned on the working
class once in power, crushing leftists and trade unionists with vigour. In other words, internal oppression continues in new forms.

At the same time, imperialism cannot be destroyed by the formation of new nation-states. Even independent nation-states are part of the
international state system, and the international capitalist system, a system in which the power of imperialist states continues to set the
rules of the game. In other words, external repression continues in new forms.

This means that the new states - and the local capitalists that control them- soon find themselves unable to fundamentally challenge
imperialist control and instead set about trying to advance their interests within the overall framework of imperialism. This means that
they maintain close economic ties with the western centers, whilst using their own state power to build up their own strength, hoping,
eventually, to graduate to imperialist status themselves. In practice, the most effective way for the local ruling classes to develop local
capitalism is to crush labor and small farmers in order to be able to sell cheap raw materials and manufactured goods on the world market.

This is no solution. We need to abolish imperialism, so creating conditions for the self-government of all people around the world. But this
requires the destruction of capitalism and the state system. At the same time, our struggle is a struggle against the ruling classes within
the third world: local oppression is no solution. The local elites are an enemy both within national liberation movements and even more so
after the formation of new nation-states. It is only the working class and peasantry who can destroy imperialism and capitalism, replacing
domination by both local and foreign elites with self-management and social and economic equality.

Hence, we are for working class autonomy and unity and solidarity across countries, across continents, and for the establishment of an
international anarcho-communist system through the self-activity of the global working class and peasantry. As Sandino said, "In this
struggle, only the workers and peasants will go all the way to the end."

Lucien Van der Walt is a professor of sociology at Rhodes University in Cape Town, South Africa and the author of numerous works relating to
working class history and anarchism.

If you enjoyed this piece we highly recommend "Oppressor and Oppressed Nations: Sketching a Taxonomy of Imperialism."

Footnotes

1. Cited in D. Geurin, 1970, Anarchism, Monthly Review, p. 68
2. ibid.
3. Geurin, 1970, op cit., p. 68.
4. M. Bakunin,[1866]"National Catechism," in S. Dolgoff (editor), 1971, Bakunin on Anarchy, George Allen and Unwin, London, p. 99.
5. Bakunin,[1873], "Statism and Anarchy," in S. Dolgoff (editor), 1971, op cit., pp. 341-3.
6. ibid.
7. Cited in S. Cipko, 1990, "Mikhail Bakunin and the National Question," in The Raven, 9, (1990), p. 3 p. 11.
8. http://members.tripod.com/~stiobhard/east.html
9. G. Woodcock, 1975, Anarchism: a History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements. Penguin, pp. 236-8.
10. H. Oliver, 1983, The International Anarchist Movement in Late Victorian London, Croom Helm, London/ Rowman and Littlefield, New Jersey,
p. 15.
11. V. Richards, 1993, Malatesta: Life and Ideas, Freedom Press, London, p. 229.
12. Ibid.; P. Marshall, 1994, Demanding the Impossible: a history of anarchism, Fontana, p. 347.
13. D. Poole, 1981, "Appendix: About Malatesta", in E. Malatesta, Fra Contadini: a Dialogue on Anarchy, Bratach Dubh Editions, Anarchist
Pamphlets no. 6, London, p. 42.
14. From Sail Mahomed, 1994, Appels Aux Travailleurs Algeriens, Volonte Anarchiste/ Edition Du Groupe Fresnes Antony, Paris (Edited by
Sylvain Boulouque).
15. From Sylvain Boulouque, 1994, "Sail Mohamed: ou la vie et la revolte d'un anarchiste Algerien" in Mahomed, 1994, op cit.
16. F.D., 27 April 1911, "Le Syndicait Marocain," in Le Bataille Syndicaliste, number 1.
17. R. Kedward, 1972, The Anarchists: the men who shocked an era, Library of the Twentieth Century, p. 67.
18. Kedward 1971, op cit., p. 67.
19. Nevinson was an English critic of imperialism; the quote is from 1909. Cited in P. Trewhela, 1988, "George Padmore: a critique, "in
Searchlight South Africa, volume 1, number 1, p. 50.
20. B, Tuchman, cited in Trewhela, 1988, op cit., p. 50.
21. Kedward 1971, op cit., p. 67.
22. M. Bookchin, 1977, The Spanish Anarchists: the heroic years 1868-1936 (Harper Colophon Books: New York, Hagerstown, San Francisco,
London, 1977, p. 163.
23. A. Paz, 1987, Durruti: the People Armed, Black Rose, Montreal, p.39.
24. J. Casanovas, 1994, Labor and Colonialism in Cuba in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century, Ph.D. thesis, State University of New
York at Stony Brook.
25. ibid., p. 436.
26. F. Fernandez, 1989, Cuba: the anarchists and liberty, ASP, London, p. 2.
27. Casanovas, 1994, op cit., p. 436
28. Casanovas, 1994, op cit., p. 8
29. ibid., p. 366.
30. ibid., p. 367.
31. ibid., pp. 381, 393-4.
32. J. Casanovas, 1995, "Slavery, the Labor Movement and Spanish Colonialism in Cuba, 1850-1890", International Review of Social History,
number 40, pp. 381-2. These struggles are detailed in Casanovas, 1994, op cit., chapters 8 and 9.
33. See, inter alia, N. Caulfield, 1995, "Wobblies and Mexican Workers in Petroleum, 1905-1924", International Review of Social History,
number 40, p. 52, and N. Caulfield, "Syndicalism and the Trade Union Culture of Mexico" (paper presented at Syndicalism: Swedish and
International Historical Experiences, Stockholm University: Sweden, March 13-4, 1998); J. Hart, 1978, Anarchism and the Mexican Working
Class, 1860-1931, Texas University Press.
34. Caulfield, 1995, op cit.; Caulfield, 1998, op cit.
35. D.C. Hodges, The Intellectual Foundations of the Nicaraguan Revolution, cited in Appendix, "The Symbols of Anarchy", The Anarchist FAQ,
http://flag.blackened.net/intanark/faq/.
36. ibid.
37. See Navarro-Genie, Sin Sandino No Hay Sandinismo: lo que Bendana pretende (unpublished mimeo: n.d.).
38. A. Bendana, 1995, A Sandinista Commemoration of the Sandino Centennial (speech given on the 61 anniversary of the death of General
Sandino, held in Managua's Olaf Palme Convention Centre, distributed by Centre for International Studies, Managua)
39 C. Levy, 1989, "Italian Anarchism, 1870-1926", in D. Goodway (editor), For Anarchism: history, theory and practice, Routledge, London/
New York, p. 56.
40. G. Williams, 1975, A Proletarian Order: Antonio Gramsci, factory councils and the origins of Italian communism 1911-21, Pluto Press, pp.
36-7.
41. Levy, 1989, op cit., p. 56; Williams, 1975, op cit., p. 37.
42. ibid. p. 35.
43. Levy, 1989, op cit., p. 56.
44. Levy, 1989, op cit., pp. 56-7.
45. ibid., pp. 56-7.
46. ibid., pp. 56-7; Williams, 1975, op cit., pp. 51-2. The quote is from Williams.
47. ibid., p. 36.
48. See, inter alia, Levy, 1989, op cit., pp. 64, 71; Williams, 1975, op cit.
49. On Connolly and Larkin, see E. O'Connor, 1988, Syndicalism in Ireland, 1917-23, Cork University Press, Ireland. I do not intend to enter
into a detailed debate over Connolly in this paper, except to state that the recurrent attempts to appropriate Connolly for Stalinism,
Trotskyism and/ or the Marxist tradition, more generally - not to mention Irish nationalism and/or Catholicism - are confounded by
Connolly's own unambiguous views on revolutionary unionism after 1904: see the materials in collections such as O. B. Edwards and B. Ransom
(editors), 1973, James Connolly: selected political writings, Jonathan Cape: London.
50. J. Connolly, 1909, "Socialism Made Easy," Edwards and Ransom (editors), op cit., pp. 271, 274.
51. Connolly,[1909], op cit., p. 262.
52. J. Connolly, Labour in Irish History (Corpus of Electronic Texts: University College, Cork, Ireland[1903-1910]), p. 183.
53. Connolly,[1903-1910], op cit., p. 25.
54. Ha Ki-Rak, 1986, A History of Korean Anarchist Movement, Anarchist Publishing Committee: Korea, pp. 27-9.
55. Ha, 1986, op cit., pp. 19-28.
56. Ha, 1986, op cit., pp. 35-69.
57. Ha, 1986, op cit., pp. 71-93.
58. Ha, 1986, op cit., pp. 96-113.

https://blackrosefed.org/lucien-history-anarchist-anti-imperialism/

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Message: 5



Hello, for French speakers, and for those who are interested in Spanish Revolution and also by public health questions, we would like to
point out that we have just released a second volume devoted to the public health system implemented during the Spanish Revolution.
Inspiring after the bankruptcy of our current healthcare system ... ---- HEALTH THROUGH THE REVOLUTION, REVOLUTION THROUGH HEALTH ----
ANARCHOSYNDICALISTS AND HEALTH DURING THE SPANISH REVOLUTION (1936-1938) ---- II. The establishment of an anarchist public health ----
Download the booklet: http://blog.cnt-ait.info/post/SANTE_36-2 ---- We continue our series on the anarchosyndicalists' Public Health work
during the Spanish Revolution.

The first volume (http://blog.cnt-ait.info/post/2020/05/11/SANTE_36-1) was devoted to emergency measures taken in the face of an unexpected
and brutal health and political event, namely a Revolution. We have seen how the anarchosyndicalists had to face, in an emergency, to take
control of the public health system, when they lacked qualified personnel and materials, and adding they had moreover to face a civil war.
The fact that anarchosyndicalists were prepared, ideologically and practically, for decades, for this eventuality, including in the health
field, enabled them to demonstrate the qualities required for the management of health crises: anticipation, preparadness, responsiveness.
Thus there was no collapse of the health system in the republican camp, there was no epidemic for example, to the great astonishment of the
delegations of the Red Cross and the Health Committee of the League of Nations which came to inspect on the spot.

In this second volume, we tackle the question of what long-term public health policy was put in place by anarchosyndicalists once the time
of absolute emergency was settled. Because it is a significant fact that - even if the health situation has always been under a very
critical tension because of the civil war - the anarchosyndicalists nevertheless tried to sketch out what it would be a "Post-crisis Public
Health" ": universal, serving the population, emphasizing prevention, socialized and decentralized.

Ambitious and visionary structural reforms - which were sometimes implemented only several decades later in our "liberal democracies" - were
initiated: secularization of health and assistance services, socialization, preventive medicine, legalization of abortion, reform of
psychiatry, integrated approach to health ("One health" concept) ... This vision culminated with the National Health Congress of 1937 which
made a proposal for a concept of Public Health from an anarchist point of view , which remains very topical. Health is indeed described as a
total state of well-being, physical, mental and social, a definition that WHO will take up on its own but without really emphasizing the
social field ...

This second volume contains translations of period articles or university articles, some of which for the first time in French, such as the
1936 abortion decree in Catalonia, Federica Montseny's retrospective analysis of his action in the field of health or the work of Félix
Martí Ibáñez, who wrote a psychoanalysis of the Spanish Revolution in the heart of the action in 1937, and which can always serve as a
support for reflection and debate on the objectives and the organization of a revolutionary movement.

Your comments and remarks are always welcome,

Good reading!

The brochure is 104 pages long, in form A5. It can be downloaded here: http://blog.cnt-ait.info/post/SANTE_36-2

You can also order it in hard copy format by sending an email to contact@cnt-ait.info.
-----------------------
INTRODUCTION: Health through Revolution, Revolution through Health

- Spanish anarchism in the debate on health in Spain: health, illness and medicine (1930-1939)
1.Introduction: the debate around health, sanitation and hygiene
2. The CNT and the concept of social medicine
3. The anarchist discourse on "social diseases"
4. The health problem during the civil war: the CNT and the control of Catalan health
5. Conclusions

- Towards a definition of Anarchist Health: the National Health Congress of March 1937
Purpose: health from an anarchist point of view
Principle: The health system from an anarchist point of view
Tactics: implementation of the principles to achieve the end
- Health in the Social and Libertarian Revolution of 1936

- Health culture in the libertarian movement
The Revolution in Catalonia and its impact on the health system
The Revolution in Valencia and its impact on the health system
The Revolution in Aragon and its impact on the health system

- Health and Social Assistance during the Civil War by Federica MONTSENY (1986)
Organization of the Ministry
Health
The Health Committee of the League of Nations
Welfare
Invitation from the Health Committee of the League of Nations
Creation of the Central Office for Evacuation and Refugee Assistance
The problem of abortion
The fight against prostitution
Final considerations

- History of abortion in Spain: the decree of the Generalitat of Catalonia, DECEMBER 1936.
 From infanticide to abortion
1930s Spain
Félix Martí Ibáñez
The Decree on artificial termination of pregnancy
The ideology of the decree on artificial termination of pregnancy
The application of the decree of artificial termination of pregnancy
Influence of the decree on the artificial termination of pregnancy in Spain
Synthetic

- Were there any legal abortions in Spain during the Revolution? Doctors' obstacles to the implementation of the 1936 Decree

- Abortion reform decree approved in 1936 by the Generalitat of Catalonia.

- Psychology and Anarchism in the Spanish Civil War: the work of Félix Martí Ibáñez
Biographical data
Martí-Ibáñez and psychology before the civil war
The reform of psychiatry during the civil war
Civil War Psychoanalysis
The psychological work of an exile

http://blog.cnt-ait.info/post/SANTE_36-2

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Message: 6



In the face of the global health crisis: state and capitalism are not the solution, solidarity is the only way out ---- The International
Relations Committee of the International Anarchist Federations (IAF-IFA) continues its activities during the current global pandemic.
Globally, the representatives of our federations met online to assess the commitment of social and organized anarchism to the current global
crisis. ---- The plunder and destruction of the natural world, the exploitation and impoverishment of entire societies, military operations,
the death of millions of people from starvation and deprivation, the creation of uninhabited - enclosed concentration camps and prisons
demonstrate the timeless criminal nature of the state system. . The barbarity of this authoritarian model of social organization today, in
conditions of global pandemic, is becoming even more apparent.

While our activists are trying to keep the social and political struggle alive in different ways, and thanks to technology despite the
general rules of restraint, we have shared the following common ground.

· Realizing the need for social responsibility in taking all necessary health precautions that everyone should adopt to protect themselves
and those around them, we denounce the authoritarianism and militarization of all governments that seek to address health issues. through
military and police repression and through the restriction of social freedoms and the strengthening of all forms of social control. This is
especially true for governments that have taken advantage of the situation to impose authoritarian changes.

· We denounce the speculation of the capitalists and the ruling classes, who are pushing for the resumption of production, disregarding the
safety of the workers, and supporting the strikes and spontaneous workers' mobilizations that are taking place worldwide, challenging the
immediate logic of profit and strengthening.

· We denounce the increase in domestic and sexist violence that is intensifying due to the measures of home restraint and we always stand
against patriarchy, sexism and homophobia / transphobia.

· We denounce the nationalist rhetoric used in many states and stand in solidarity with immigrants, who suffer and risk more than others due
to the inhumane and miserable conditions in the concentration camps.

· We stand in solidarity with the prisoners and against all prisons, camps and structures of total control, whose murderous nature has
become particularly visible due to the pandemic.

· We denounce the living conditions of the poor and all the unemployed and precarious workers who bear the brunt of social injustice around
the world and are at risk of starvation in some countries, which are the last concern of governments and elites.

· We stand in solidarity with health workers and all workers who perform duties necessary for the lives of each of us and who often work
without the necessary precautions and guarantees, often paying with their lives for the inadequacies and mistakes of state and
administrative regimes.

· We stand in solidarity with all peoples and communities who are resisting state wars and repression, from Chiapas to Rotzava and whose
burdens are rising because of Covid-19.

· For all this, we call for the dissemination of mutual aid, solidarity and sharing efforts from below to take place throughout the world,
so that we can implement the only practices that are able to effectively deal with current global problems. Those forms of mutual aid
between the weakest social strata, the elderly, the oppressed, the exploited and those groups and individuals who are discriminated against
should be intensified. With greater intensity than ever, it is necessary to support all those real experiences aimed at transforming our
daily lives, including cooperative structures of solidarity, alternative and libertarian schools, occupied spaces, places of solidarity and
exchange economy.

Although it would be impossible to summarize all those real experiences and support structures supported by our partners and federations in
different countries and realities, some examples include: creating support groups that support communities / neighborhoods in dealing with
the virus, as for for example by providing food, protection and medicine; opening new housing and cultural activities, including occupying
human space angry without shelter, handling books, periodicals and other ancillary materials and analyzes to address the crisis; promoting
and putting into practice alternatives to the existing capitalist economic system such as solidarity funds; promoting immediate action to
support vulnerable groups such as communities. of the natives. And many more that cannot be included in this list.

The state and capitalist system of organizing society, which is already condemning millions of people to death from starvation, disease, and
military operations, is fighting not against the evolving pandemic, but to keep their privileges intact, their political position in power.
and financially strong.

Experiencing the current situation together with all of us, the anarchists of the International Federation of Anarchist Federations continue
our global battle for justice and freedom, to build day by day the new world we bring to our hearts.

http://apo.squathost.com/

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