Anarchic update news all over the world - Part 1 - 28.05.2018

Today's Topics:

   
1.  France, Alternative Libertaire AL #283 - May 58: The
      anarchists and the coup d'etat of De Gaulle (fr, it, pt) [machine
      translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  Britain, brighton solfed: Youngs tenant gives an update on
      his battle against eviction and our campaign for compensation
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  Britain, anarchist communist group ACG: Two Meetings at
      London Radical Bookfair 2/6/18 (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
4.  Greece, Initiative of Thessaloniki [Anarchist Federation]
      Opposite to the sirens of the war to bell the bell of proletarian
      internationalism (gr) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
5.  wsm.ie: No campaign plans to try and suppress Yes vote on
      Repeal day - bring ID to thwart them (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
6.  France, Alternative Libertaire - AL Tract, Clear Macron? And
      after? (fr, it, pt) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
7.  US, black rose fed: CAPITALIST DEVELOPMENT IN NICARAGUA AND
      THE MIRAGE OF THE LEFT (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1





This month, no umpteenth article on May 68 ! But a study on the anarchist and 
revolutionary intervention in an event largely forgotten today: the coup d'etat of De 
Gaulle, against a colonial background, in May 1958. ---- Who remembers today what was the 
"  De Gaulle coup  " in May 1958 ? The sedition of the army and settlers of Algeria 
claiming his coming to power ? From the pusillanimity of the republican parties ? 
Moderation of the PCF ? Calls for the anti-fascist uprising of the far left ? ---- The 
French state has been bogged down for three and a half years in a colonial war that 
appears to be increasingly unwinnable. Repression, censorship, counter-guerrilla war, 
torture ... nothing works: the Algerian resistance is holding up and gaining an audience. 
The UN has seized the issue. In metropolitan France itself, anticolonialism is progressing.

There is no doubt that the parties that dominate the Assembly - SFIO (Socialist), MRP 
(Christian Democrat) and CNIP (right) - plan to enter into talks with the FLN. In Algiers, 
the settlers feel it, they know it, panic: their properties, their privileges, their world 
are threatened with collapse. They place their last hopes in the army, convinced that it 
can still eradicate the FLN if it is not betrayed by the cowards of the Palais Bourbon.

On May 13, 1958, in Algiers, thousands of settlers demand more intransigence from Paris. 
The demonstration turned into insurrection: the crowd invaded the headquarters of the 
General Government shouting "  the army in power !  " The staff, complacent, joins the 
movement. A Committee of Public Safety composed of colonists, soldiers and a handful of 
Muslims is formed under the authority of General Massu. The next morning, the latter 
claims on the radio that be formed in Paris "  a government of public safety, which alone 
can save Algeria from abandonment, and in doing so a Dien Bien Phu diplomatic  ". And 
Massu to let go of the name of the providential man whom he calls his vow to power: 
General de Gaulle.

Yet it is eleven years since "  the man of June 18  " withdrew gracefully from politics. 
But his faithful remained mobilized. They plot in the state apparatus, in the army and 
among the putschists of Algiers. May 13th creates a golden opportunity. Their champion can 
come back to power if he grabs the hand extended by the colonial lobby.

On May 15, in fact, the second thunderbolt: General de Gaulle declared himself publicly " 
ready to assume the powers of the Republic  ". General poll. The Assembly calls on the MRP 
Government Pierre Pflimin to hold out against this coup ; the left as a whole exclaims " 
fascism will not pass  " ; the press is alarmed by a possible civil war ; CGT and FO 
threaten to call for a general strike.

Three poles of opposition to the putsch
In the two weeks that follow, the opposition to the putsch is organized around three 
distinct poles.

The first consists of the SFIO, supported by some other left-wing Republican parties, the 
League of Human Rights, the Free Thought, FO and the CFTC. They form a Liaison Committee 
for the defense of the republic and democratic freedoms. Mute on the Algerian question, 
this pole will stick to the defense of the legality, hoping that the majority of the army 
will remain loyal to the republic.

A second pole is that of the Stalinist tandem PCF-CGT. The PCF, which is then the first 
party of France, calls for the constitution of a new "  Popular Front  ", with the 
socialists and the radicals, to defend "  the republic  " as in 1936. To facilitate the 
approximation, the PCF makes silence on the Algerian question [1]. This outstretched hand 
will be rejected by the Socialists, who fear a communist dictatorship even more than the 
putschists - it is two years after the crash of Hungary by the Red Army. However, if the 
PCF cries to fascism, it moderates its action: the USSR is indeed in favor of de Gaulle, 
seen as anti-American.

A third pole is formed by the extreme left which, clearly anticolonialist, does not want 
to "  save the republic  ", but to defeat fascism. On May 15, at the initiative of Maurice 
Joyeux and Georges Vincey, of the FA, is constituted a revolutionary Action Committee 
(CAR) which brings together the Trotskyist PCI of Pierre Lambert, the CGT union of iron 
Carpenters as well as a trade unionist group, the Liaison and Action Committee for 
Workers' Democracy. In record time, the CAR, domiciled at Libertaire Libertaire, rue 
Ternaux, publishes a poster entitled "  Alert workers  ", calling for action, which is 
placarded 3,000 copies in Paris. In the process, the CAR is joined by the GAAR, two 
student groups, activists of the reviews The proletarian revolution and Socialism or Barbary.

Anxious to place the FA under a "  democratic umbrella  ", Joyeux also gives the FA's 
support to the Liaison Committee for the Defense of the Republic [2], like the PCI.

He will not be rewarded for his initiative. At the FA congress, which took place from 24 
to 26 May, the humanists denounced the presence of the FA in the CAR, and even more so to 
the Comité de vigilance. Bordeaux Aristide Lapeyre protests: Joyeux "  violated the 
agreements  " between members of the FA, because "  the statutes of the organization 
forbid him  " to do that. Happy protests: it has on the contrary "  rendered service  " to 
the FA by removing it from its "  torpor  ", since the federal authorities did nothing [3].

On the last day of the conference, we learn that the situation is getting worse. The 
putschists took control of Corsica and issued an ultimatum: if in five days the Elysee did 
not appoint de Gaulle as head of government, they will march on Paris.

No overflow on May 28
May 28 marks the apogee of the opposition to the coup. Whereas, the day before, the 
general strike attempted by the CGT was a failure, 200,000 to 250,000 people marched 
against de Gaulle in Paris, from Nation to Republic.

The members of the Liaison Committee for the Defense of the Republic are leading the 
march, accompanied by FO and CFTC leaders. Behind them, they say, "  Long live the 
republic !  Between two Marseillaise. Follow the teachers and students. Then come the big 
battalions of the CGT and the PCF. There, Republican slogans, we add "  Fascism will not 
pass !  "  Unity of action !  "  Popular Front !  "  Factieux, at the post !  "  Massu at 
the post !  ","  De Gaulle at the museum !  ".Finally, at the end of the demo, the CAR 
procession uses only anti-fascist slogans by adding: "  The Giraffe at the Zoo !  "," 
Let's disarm the paras !  " Or "  The paratroopers at the factory !  " And only The 
International sounds.

Arrived at the Place de la Republique, the Socialist and Republican deputies quickly 
disappear. We call to dispersion. The pole led by the CAR refuses, and enters the street 
of the Temple, barred by a cord of CRS. Alerted, the services of order SFIO and PCF come 
and go. Exchange of sweet-sour words: "  No provocation  " - "  We do not care about the 
republic !  - "  It was not our watchword  " - "  You go to the massacre  ". The scene 
lasts half an hour, before CAR militants resign themselves and turn on their heels [4].

In the kiosks, Le Monde has just fallen. Alain Beuve-Mery there buries the IV th Republic: 
"  Today, in the immediate[...]General de Gaulle seems the lesser evil  " [5].

The next day, a few hours before the expiry of the ultimatum of the factious, the Elysee 
named the "  most illustrious French  " to Matignon. It forms a government of national 
unity where there are Gaullists, but also members of the CNIP, the MRP and ... the SFIO. 
Its leader, Guy Mollet, indeed negotiated his rally the day before. Under the threat of 
the army, the Assembly surrendered and voted full powers to de Gaulle for six months 
before self-dissolution. PCF votes against ; outraged by the betrayal of Guy Mollet, the 
SFIO explodes.

The last acts of opposition will have been the fact of the National Education, strike on 
May 30, and the PCF, with a show of honor on  June 1 st .

Referendum-plebiscite: vote no or abstain  ?
Rest the CAR. He will continue his activity for a few months, leaving posters and leaflets 
calling for antifascist vigilance, but will be divided in September, when de Gaulle will 
submit to referendum the Constitution of the Fifth Republic, cut for him. This will be the 
first of these Gaullian referendums-plebiscites to which the PCF and the far left will now 
systematically call for a no vote.

In the anarchist movement, this raises a debate. Should we vote no ? This is the opinion 
of a part of the FA who, with André Devriendt or Maurice Laisant, believes that the 
organization must campaign, on its own, against the Constitution Gaullist. Another party 
argues for abstention, saying that it is necessary to refuse to "   vote under threat of 
death  " that "  the games are made  " [6]. In the end, the FA will come out with a clever 
poster, denouncing the "  plebiscite  " and stressing that "  no or abstention is not 
enough  " because " workers will tomorrow fight  " for their rights and liberties against 
fascism. For their part, a portion of the GAAR - including Mâcon - campaign for no but 
lack of financial means, failing to make their own speech heard [7]. This inability to 
weigh as a militant force, both in May and September, will soon push the GAAR to reflect 
on their entry, as a trend, into the FA [8].

Finally, everyone will be stunned by the massive result of the referendum on September 28: 
80% participation, 82.6  % yes. Even a fifth of the communist electorate voted yes against 
the party's instructions. An unexpected triumph for de Gaulle, which all newspapers of the 
time will analyze as a success based on legitimism towards the providential man. It will 
be followed in November by a Gaullist tidal wave in the National Assembly.

The Fifth Republic was born, and General de Gaulle will lead it for eleven years. 
Betraying the hopes of the colonial lobby, it will implement the abandonment of French 
Algeria, which the IV th Republic had been unable to solve. And, beating the odds, he will 
not establish a fascist regime, but rather "  Bonapartist  ", centralized around the 
person of the head of state, in direct communion with "  the people  " through regular 
plebiscites.

"  They wanted a strong man to feel run, they finally had him and delegated all powers, 
write Black and Red in a disillusioned record of the year 1958. As for the others, those 
of" the left "voted everything from even for him, they also relied on his good care, to 
finish the war in Algeria, to save the republic, etc. With him we went to see. We saw. And 
we have not finished seeing some.  " [9]

William Davranche (AL Montreuil)

A well-rounded case
May 13, 1958: putsch of Algiers: carried by a crowd of settlers angry against Paris, a 
committee of public safety is created and claims de Gaulle in power.

May 15: de Gaulle declares himself available. Panic to the government. Creation of a 
revolutionary Action Committee calling for antifascist resistance.

May 18: creation of a Liaison Committee for the defense of the republic and democratic 
freedoms.

May 19: de Gaulle wants to reassure: "  Do we believe that, at 67, I will start a career 
of dictator ?  "

May 25: Operation Resurrection: the putschists seize Corsica, and launch an ultimatum: if 
de Gaulle is not in power on May 30, they will invest Paris.

May 24-26: Congress of the Anarchist Federation in Paris.

May 27: the general strike at the call of the CGT is a failure. De Gaulle announces that 
the process of his accession to power is engaged.

May 28: 250,000 people march in Paris against the coup in three sections: Republican, 
Stalinist and revolutionary.

May 29: President René Coty calls de Gaulle to Matignon.

May 30: strike of the National Education against the putsch.

1 st  June: the threat of the army, the Assembly invests the government of national unity 
(SFIO-MRP-CNIP-Gaullists) formed by de Gaulle. Manifesto of the PCF.

June 2-3: The Assembly gives full powers to the government for six months and mandates it 
to draft a new constitution. PCF votes against, the SFIO parliamentary group explodes.

September 4: de Gaulle presents the draft new Constitution. Call to vote yes: SFIO, 
Radical Party, MRP, Gaullists, CNIP. Call to vote no: PCF, PCI, part of the anarchist 
movement and several left socialist parties that will merge, in 1960, into the PSU.

September 28th: referendum: 80  % of yes. The Fifth  Republic is established.

In 1958, a weakened anarchist movement
In the summer of 1957, the libertarian Communist Federation, which was its most dynamic 
component, was dismantled by repression because of its support for Algerian independence. 
Several of his activists, including Pierre Morain, Paul Philippe and Georges Fontenis, are 
then under lock and key.

Coming from a split of the FCL, the anarchist groups of revolutionary action (GAAR), are 
very invested in anticolonialism, but have only few means. Their monthly magazine, Black 
and Red, publishes background studies, but disconnected from the news.

The Anarchist Federation (FA), constituted in 1954, is a rather passive structure, the 
unanimist functioning of which forbids it to define collective positions. Some of its 
members, behind André Prudhommeaux, Charles-Auguste Bontemps and Paul Rassinier, are now 
evolving towards a kind of reformist humanism.

A revolutionary sensitivity is maintained nevertheless, animated by Maurice Joyeux and 
Maurice Fayolle. His monthly Le Monde libertaire reflects this diversity. On the Algerian 
war, the dominant attitude is the wait-and-see attitude: sympathy for the Algerian 
insurgents, but refusal to support them so as not to support their nationalism. We find a 
position similar to the CNT, moribund structure at this time.


[1] The PCF is then joining the solution of Algerian independence ; it will not rally it 
frankly until September 1959.

[2] Maurice Joyeux, Under the folds of the black flag, Volume II, Libertarian World 
Edition, 1988, page 193.

[3] Internal Bulletin of the FA, June 1958, Archives Ugac / FACL.

[4] Le Monde, May 30, 1958, Socialisme ou Barbarie, July-August 1958, The Truth, September 
18, 1958.

[5] Sirius, "  The Bitter Truth,  " Le Monde, May 29, 1958.

[6] Libertarian World, August-September 1958.

[7] Gaar / FACL Archives.

[8] Laison, August and November 1958, Archives Gaar / FACL. The entry into the FA will 
take place in May 1961, forming a trend, Union anarchist-communist groups.

[9] Black and Red, winter 1958-1959.

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Courrier-d-une-lectrice-droit-de-reponse-l-obscure-clarte-de-la-pornographie

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Message: 2





The tenant from our dispute with Youngs estate agency, Patrick, provides an update on the 
campaign. Patrick began organising with Brighton SolFed in December 2017 for better living 
conditions and for compensation and reimbursement for work he has undertaken on his flat. 
Following this, he was served with an eviction notice in late January 2017, in what 
appears to be a clear example of a revenge eviction by a landlord unwilling to undertake 
necessary works to bring his property up to a liveable standard. ---- Patrick explains 
what has been happening since that point, including his battle to get the eviction order 
overturned, and his ongoing campaign with us for the compensation he is owed, including 
the extension of our campaign to Halls Estate Agents. ---- You can find further 
information about this dispute here:

1. 
http://www.brightonsolfed.org.uk/brighton/brighton-solidarity-federation-opens-a-dispute-with-youngs-estate-agency
2. http://www.brightonsolfed.org.uk/brighton/youngs-agency-no-revenge-evictions
3. 
http://www.brightonsolfed.org.uk/brighton/brighton-solfed-march-shows-youngs-cannot-ignore-demands-for-safe-living
4. 
http://www.brightonsolfed.org.uk/brighton/interview-safe-conditions-no-evictions-life-as-a-tenant-of-youngs-lettings-agency
5. http://www.brightonsolfed.org.uk/brighton/youngs-agency-another-horror-story-emerges
6. 
http://www.brightonsolfed.org.uk/brighton/brighton-solidarity-federation-extends-its-campaign-against-youngs-to-halls-estate-agency

Want to support the campaign or having trouble with your landlord or lettings agency? Get 
in touch with us by emailing housing@brightonsolfed.org.uk, or by sending a text to 
07427239960.

http://www.brightonsolfed.org.uk/brighton/youngs-tenant-gives-an-update-on-his-battle-against-eviction-and-our-campaign-for

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Message: 3





2pm - No War But The Class War ---- Joint meeting with ACG, the CWO (Communist Workers' 
Organisation) and others. ---- As capitalism's economic crisis deepens our rulers are 
determined to make the working class pay for it by increasing exploitation and reducing 
wages and living conditions. ---- All across the world, the capitalists and their 
political puppets are also trying to prevent any united working class fightback by 
widening divisions in the working class, such as nationality, race, ethnicity, religion, 
gender and sexual preference. The xenophobia whipped up before and after the Brexit 
campaign, the Trump election campaign and the election campaigns of nationalist 
governments in Hungary and Poland are a few recent examples of what is happening and what 
is to come.

At the same time national states are trying to push the crisis onto capitalists of other 
states or blocs of states by trade wars. And history tells us that trade wars are the 
prelude to shooting wars. While imperialist proxy wars continue to rage in the Middle 
East, Africa and Eastern Europe, and while a new conflict with Iran is being stoked up, 
increasingly intense global conflicts are being prepared.

Nationalism is the main tool being used to recruit workers to support their rulers in 
these wars. No faction of the capitalist class is worth supporting and none is "a lesser 
evil"! The alternative is not to do nothing. There are already voices being raised under 
the banner of "No war but the class war!" to challenge the fate that the capitalists are 
preparing for us.

Join them in a public meeting to find out more and make your own contribution.

Taken from CWO website

4pm - ACG meeting on Land and Liberty
‘Land and liberty' has been a key anarchist slogan through-out the world. This is because 
without land, one cannot survive, and without liberty, we cannot live. Though often 
associated with peasant struggles, the struggle for land is as much as issue today in 
urban areas as it is in the haciendas of Latin America. All our struggles in the city are 
arise because we do not have control and access to land. Houses, food, community and 
social spaces, parks and open spaces all are at the mercy of whoever owns the land. And 
this is extremely unequal. Although a majority of us have a small stake in the 5% of UK 
land upon which our housing is built, the majority of land (70%) in the UK is owned by 
just 0.6% of the population. But even land owned by the government is not land controlled 
by us. Think of Grenfell and the lack of control residents had over their homes that were 
meant to be in public ownership. Think of the land owned by the Forestry Commission and 
the Ministry of Defence.

This talk will discuss why demands for land justice need to be at the heart of our 
struggles, both to have common ownership but also liberty to organise how we use the land 
for the benefit of all. There will be some historical and international examples as well 
as examples from London.

London Radical Book Fair takes place 12-6pm at Goldsmiths University, 8 Lewisham Way, SE14 6NW
Website: https://londonradicalbookfair.wordpress.com/

https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2018/05/23/two-meetings-at-london-radical-bookfair-2-6-18/

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Message: 4





The aggravation of the capitalist overaccumulation crisis has, among other things, 
generated several belligerent zones, scattered across the globe and across the globe (see 
Ukraine, the Middle East, Central and North Africa) surrounding the capitalist centers. 
Capitalist barbarism does not leave the sun in fate for the poor and the oppressed. 
Sovereignty is now shaping the terms by which it is the rough sorting of who will survive 
and who will not. The transition from the social-democratic management of social recession 
through the use of loan money and the use of the financial sphere, in fierce neoliberalism 
and fiscal surveillance is in line with the aggressive reconstruction of capital at the 
global level in demanding the demands imposed by the now worsening market economy. 
Similarly, the state apparatus is proceeding with emergency measures and suppression of 
the internal enemy, while the Western metropolises are militarized using as a pretext the 
migratory flows and the campaign against terrorism.

The irreconcilable internal contradictions of capitalism, which once again contributed to 
the explosion of a structural crisis, bring to the forefront one of the strong papers that 
the ruling class is supposed to throw in such cases. This paper is war, as it is a way out 
of capital from the capitalist crisis, but also a golden opportunity for the enrichment of 
the arsenals. The price, of course, is to pay for it, with both their pocket and their 
blood, where they are oppressed and exploited. War is an advantageous solution for capital 
when it is in deadlock. It can open up new markets, new business opportunities through the 
insatiable exploitation of the raw materials and the working hands of the areas in the eye 
of the cyclone. Also, after the period of a generalized disaster, which is destroying both 
parts of the fixed (production) and the variable (labor) workers, there is always a period 
of developmental capital reconstruction, even though it is based on debris and corpses. As 
mentioned above, of course, war is an ongoing reality at the moment. However, it is 
carried out by delegates and at least has not hit the door of the "West". war is an 
ongoing reality at the moment. However, it is carried out by delegates and at least has 
not hit the door of the "West". war is an ongoing reality at the moment. However, it is 
carried out by delegates and at least has not hit the door of the "West".

Greece ranks second in the ranking of the NATO countries with the largest military 
expenditure proportionally to their GNP. Every year, Greece's military spending is 
estimated at 2.4% of GDP (surpassing the 2% threshold set by the Alliance at its 2006 
summit), amounting to 4.5 billion dollars. Armaments costs are at the top of the state 
budget's priorities, while the social majority is being wiped out by the austerity 
policies mandated by the memorandums. Indeed, the memorandum commitments stipulate that 
the country's international economic authority will keep at least until 2060.

As a member of NATO and as an organic part of the chariot of Euro-Atlantic imperialism, 
the role of the overseer (the second after Israel) of the respective interests in the 
eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans has been indicated in the Greek state. This, 
however, means that, albeit in the alternative, the Greek state will be involved, to the 
extent that it owes it, to the geopolitical rivalries and warfare involving its patrons. 
It is certain, however, that the domestic bourgeoisie will seek to get as much as possible 
from the pie shared in its neighborhood. At the moment, the local bourgeoisie seeks to 
make Greece an energy hub in the Eastern Mediterranean and a channel for the transport of 
natural gas and electricity to the European Union. This translates the alliance between 
Greece, Cyprus, Israel and Egypt, as, apart from the military alliances and exercises 
defined by this transnational agreement, as well as the US recommendations. and NATO, 
which are actually behind it, the construction of the East Med gas pipeline and the 
Euro-Asia Interconnector to transport electricity to the countries of the European Union.

NATO-led plans seek to "plant" military bases in the Greek territory, preparing for the 
upgrading of conflicts in the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean. At the same time, 
the militarization of the NATO countries is also a demonstration of power in order to tear 
the teeth to the Russian agent, who is the main enemy of the United States. from the BRICS 
axis (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). The instability of US-Turkey relations 
(recently Turkey has announced that Incirlik's base will cease to serve NATO) is upgrading 
Greece's geostrategic importance for NATO, because NATO is now called upon to find new 
points for its military activities. The Andravida airbase (which was held in March 2018 by 
the Hanoi warfare) and Araxos' counterpart (there is a possibility of nuclear 
resettlement) will be upgraded. In Larissa, a drones base will be created, while in 
Alexandroupolis the construction of a helicopter base is planned. For Syros, NATO's design 
stipulates the conversion of the port of Ermoupolis to a strategic point where the US Navy 
ships will be repaired and refitted. In his recent visit to Greece, US Ambassador Jeffrey 
Paith said that shipyards in Neorion of Syros should be purchased by a company belonging 
to a NATO member state, which is why there is also interest from the US .. At the same 
time, talks are being made to rebuild the port of Ermoupolis to allow large ships of the 
armed forces of the United States to be moored. Lastly, the Ministry of Defense issued a 
proposal to the US Embassy to promote the construction of a large heliport in a flat islet 
near Kalymnos, which will serve the parking and supply of American helicopters. It is now 
clear in the most obvious way that the Greek state provides generous edification to the 
suggestions dictated by US military plans. and NATO, with the country becoming the base of 
the military interventions of Euro-Atlantic imperialism. the Department of National 
Defense has made a proposal to the US Embassy to promote the construction of a large 
heliport on a flat island near Kalymnos, which will serve the parking and supply of 
American helicopters. It is now clear in the most obvious way that the Greek state 
provides generous edification to the suggestions dictated by US military plans. and NATO, 
with the country becoming the base of the military interventions of Euro-Atlantic 
imperialism. the Department of National Defense has made a proposal to the US Embassy to 
promote the construction of a large heliport on a flat island near Kalymnos, which will 
serve the parking and supply of American helicopters. It is now clear in the most obvious 
way that the Greek state provides generous edification to the suggestions dictated by US 
military plans. and NATO, with the country becoming the base of the military interventions 
of Euro-Atlantic imperialism. It is now clear in the most obvious way that the Greek state 
provides generous edification to the suggestions dictated by US military plans. and NATO, 
with the country becoming the base of the military interventions of Euro-Atlantic 
imperialism. It is now clear in the most obvious way that the Greek state provides 
generous edification to the suggestions dictated by US military plans. and NATO, with the 
country becoming the base of the military interventions of Euro-Atlantic imperialism.

The oppressed and exploited, in whatever part of the map we are, do not have to divide 
anything between us. We must perceive the community of our class interests and on this 
basis organize our counter-attack against those who oppress us and live by our labor. We 
are not going to fight for the interests of local and international bosses, we will not 
fight for any homeland, nor turn the gun barrels to the proletarians of the other 
countries, from which they try to divide us by any artificial means the masters, any 
available solvent of class consciousness (eg nation, border, religion).

In the event of war the world proletariat will be what will be forced to initiate the war 
machines of the capitalists by paying the price to the lives of people in our class. The 
clouds of a war of widespread warfare seem to be thickening and the involvement of the 
Greek state in NATO's military plans is deepening. The recent bombing of Damascus and Homs 
by British Air Force, France and the US Air Force involved a ship sailing from Suda's base 
and airfreight aircraft that took off from the same base.

Today, it is necessary to set up an anti-war movement on the basis of internationalist, 
class solidarity. Part of this framework is the army's sabotage, as well as the refusal of 
the proletarians to serve in the ranks of the armed forces. Based on the Greek reality, 
this movement must have a clear anti-NATO character, but it does not fall into the trap of 
supporting imperialist forces that are considered "less damaging" on the grounds that they 
are a rival awe to US imperialism. In order not to flatter us, then, a global warfare 
triggered by the needs of the capitalists, we ought now and now to change the power 
correlations in the ensuing social and class conflict. Our response to the war-wreck of 
global state and capitalist barbarism must be the global social revolution with the aim of 
unleashing the slave layers from the slumber of state power and the capitalist 
exploitation of human labor. In the next critical shift in class struggle, we must have 
set up our revolutionary infrastructures so that we can cast on the terms of historical 
realization, the creative paper of anarchism, the social organization on the foundations 
of libertarian communism.

AGAINST THE COMPETITIONS OF THE MAJORS AND THEIR WAR DESIGNS

INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY BETWEEN LANDSCAPE AND LANDSCAPE

ORGANIZATION AND RACE FOR WORLD SOCIAL REVOLUTION, FREEDOM OF COMMUNICATION AND ANARCHY

ANTIPOLEMIC AND RESPONSIBILITY IN LARISA:

SEPTEMBER 26 MAY

12:00, MAIL SIDE

Anarchist Federation

anarchist-federation.gr
and narchist-fe d eration @ ris e up.net
twitter: twitter.com/anarchistfedGr
fb: facebook.com/anarxikiomospondia2015 /

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Message: 5





Last night we received information (screen shot above) that the No campaign intend to 
engage in Trump style voter suppression methods by trying to get their people appointed as 
personation officers at polling stations. They intend to target stations likely to have a 
high Yes voter the hope that increasing the number of challenges will result in enough Yes 
voters being unable vote to make a difference if, as is still possible, the result is 
close. Be sure to bring ID when you go to vote on Friday, the polling card is NOT in 
itself ID. ---- Valid ID includes (i) a passport; (ii) a driving licence; (iii) an 
employee identity card containing a photograph; (iv) a student identity card issued by an 
educational institution and containing a photograph; etc for the full list see 
https://www.referendum.ie/general_information/evidence-of-identity-at-polling-stations/

Voter suppression though demanding ID is a major tactic used by the right in US elections, 
often prepared for by the sort of scare stories that No leaders have been putting out 
during this week. As the intercepted message shows their method is to target polling 
stations which they know would have a large Yes votes in the hope that a couple of percent 
of voters may only have brought voting card presuming it counts as ID (it doesn't).

Obviously- as they intend - if this is only done at stations with large Yes votes and not 
at those where a No majority is expected it can tilt the overall vote in a very close result.

As we currently understand things while they can appoint observers these people are not 
allowed challenge voters themselves. They can only observe to confirm that the presiding 
officer does so and are under strict regulations at all times themselves to prevent 
intimidation. See first comment on Facebook posting of this piece for an extract from the 
regulations.

It looks to us like these scheme probably came from the No campaign American advisors who 
at several points in the campaign have reproduced American messaging (eg the solider / 
fireman ads) that don't work in an Irish context.

In this case we think they have over estimated the amount of interference with the 
democratic process that is possible for their plants so their is not likely to be that 
effective. But do bring ID so if you are challenged their 'cunning plan' will fail.

Polling stations will be open from 7am, we recommend getting their early, casting your 
vote and then using social media to let all your friends know its time to do likewise as 
getting a high turnout will be very important for Yes. We are about to make history this 
Friday and take another step in escaping the grim Ireland of their past.

Author: Andrew N Flood

https://wsm.ie/c/no-campaign-suppress-yes-vote-repeal-day

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Message: 6





"Euro Exit", "VI th Republic," "universal income" ... many rattles more or less rowdy. As 
long as we have not radically questioned the capitalist property of the means of 
production and exchange, we will not advance one iota. A good solution ? Socialization, 
self-management. ---- Obviously, if a wave of social revolt made the government falter, 
and drove Macron out of the Elysee, we could only applaud, for that would be a sign of the 
power of the social movement. ---- But in truth, between us, we do not care about " clear 
Macron ". ---- Macron is nothing. " Jupiter " is only a myth. His policy is not new or 
disruptive . It is only part of the trajectory of its predecessors Hollande, Sarkozy, 
Chirac or Mitterrand. ---- Because the politics of the state, in a capitalist framework, 
is always the politics of capitalism. To replace the ultra-liberal Macron by a Keynesian 
or sovereignist politician is not the question.

The question no one dares to ask
The central and fundamental question is that of the capitalist property of the means of 
production and exchange. The central, fundamental question is: who owns ? So who decides 
our future ? Who shapes the economy and society for profit ?

As long as we have not radically questioned the capitalist property of the means of 
production and exchange, we will not advance one iota.


Download PDF to download
Every politician has its turnkey solution for so-called change of life: here it will be 
out of the euro or the closing of borders, there a Constituent raffled, the VI th 
Republic, universal income, nationalization banks, and many other rattles more or less rowdy.

Each time, let's ask ourselves the question: does this politician question capitalist 
property ? Does it want the economy to be socialized or to remain under the control of a 
privileged minority ? Or does he keep an embarrassed silence about it ?

Libertarian alternative makes it clear: there will be no solution to social disintegration 
and ecological disaster without the expropriation of the owners, the socialization of the 
economy, its self-management by the first and first concerned, its implementation. service 
of the population.

Only by socializing business and the economy in general will we be able to relocate 
industry, produce what is socially useful and environmentally sustainable. It is only by 
entrusting the management of production to the first and the first concerned that we can 
transform the work, the unalienable, question the separation between manual and 
intellectual work, drastically reduce the working time.

BD-tract: click to enlarge
For the autonomy of the social movement
This socialist self-management is at the heart of the libertarian communist project that 
we carry.

The popular classes can become actresses and decision-makers again. There is an urgent 
need to strengthen social movements, strikes, trade unionism, struggle associations ... 
Today, social movements are looking for a new breath. They will find it if they know how 
to reinvent themselves. For the class struggle never stops.

But in order to rebuild social movements, one must also not reproduce the mistakes of the 
past, and not place vain hopes in a political alternation at the head of the state. In 
1981 as in 1997, this has always resulted in a weakening of the social movement and the 
betrayal of electoral promises ...

The autonomy of the social movement is the condition of its political capacity. This is 
the condition for tomorrow to represent a real force, without which there will be no 
alternative to capitalism.

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Degager-Macron-Et-apres

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Message: 7






Following up on our recent coverage of the protest in Nicaragua we present this piece 
looking at the broader context of the left-wing Sandinistas and Daniel Ortega in state 
power and their model of capitalist development. We recommend our previous postings "One 
Million Hands Flourishing" by Tanya H.F. and "It's No Longer About Social Security: Inside 
the Nicaraguan Student Protests" and "A Door Has Been Opened: Nicaragua's April 19 
Uprising" by Miranda de las Calles. #TheLeftInPower ---- By William I. Robinson, Truthout 
---- The image carefully cultivated by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and his 
supporters as the standard-bearers of the popular revolutionary process led by the 
Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in the 1980s has all but crumbled in the wake 
of the mass protests that broke out last month against pension reform that left dozens of 
people dead, and hundreds injured and jailed. For some, the protests were a plot organized 
by the United States to destabilize a revolutionary government. For others, it was an 
explosion of mass discontent against a corrupt and authoritarian regime.

While the United States and the traditional Nicaraguan oligarchy would certainly like to 
have a more pliant regime in place, they have accommodated themselves to the Ortega 
government. The Sandinista inner circle has hacked its way into the ranks of the country's 
elite in a process dating back to the aftermath of the 1980s revolution, proving capable 
of overseeing a new round of capitalist development since coming back to power in 2007. 
Ortega and the FSLN have dressed in a leftist discourse their attempt to establish a 
populist multiclass political alliance around this project of capitalist development under 
the firm hegemony of capital and Sandinista state elites.

While the FSLN retains a mass, if dwindling, base among the country's peasantry and urban 
poor, the FSLN leadership has made pacts with the traditional oligarchy; suppressed 
dissent; enriched itself through plunder of state resources and an alliance with 
transnational capital; and deployed the army, police and paramilitary forces to violently 
repress peasants, workers and social movements opposing its policies.

Now capitalist development is entering into crisis in Nicaragua. The government's 
announcement that it would cut pension payments to retirees and increase the contribution 
required by workers and businesses into the pension was the spark that ignited the April 
uprising. But political tension and social conflict has been building up for years, and it 
is this crisis of capitalism that forms the larger backdrop to the recent events.

The Sandinista Bourgeoisie
The Sandinistas first came to power in 1979 in the wake of the mass insurrection that 
overthrew the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza. A decade of relentless US intervention - 
including a counterrevolutionary military campaign, an economic embargo and internal 
political interference (not to mention the Sandinistas' own mistakes) - eventually led to 
the Sandinistas being voted out of office in 1990.

The electoral defeat plunged the Sandinista party into a sharp internal crisis over 
programs, ideological orientation and strategy. While the Sandinista grassroots engaged in 
sustained resistance to the neoliberal program in the early 1990s, a new Sandinista elite 
also made its appearance among those who had acquired substantial properties during the 
1990 regime change by privatizing to themselves what were state assets and public 
property. This pillage and personal appropriation by Sandinista leaders and bureaucrats of 
state property was known in Nicaragua as the "piñata."

As the 1990s progressed, new Sandinista landlords and businessmen began to develop an 
affinity of class interests - and to merge with - the bourgeoisie. The new Sandinista 
elite gradually moved from leading the popular classes in their resistance to the 
counterrevolutionary program of capitalist reconstruction to utilizing the party's 
(dwindling) authority to contain these classes and control their mobilization. Yet the 
FSLN leadership continued to legitimate itself with a revolutionary discourse that no 
longer corresponded to any political program or conduct other than that of furthering its 
own group interests and securing a place among the dominant bloc in the new neoliberal order.

The FSLN made a pact in 1999 with a wing of the traditional oligarchy known as the Liberal 
Alliance, whereby the two political forces negotiated a power-sharing arrangement. During 
the 1990s, meanwhile, the police and the army shed their revolutionary character and began 
more and more to violently dislodge peasants who had taken over land in the countryside, 
to attack striking workers who occupied factories or government offices, and to break up 
often-peaceful street demonstrations.

As it made a new bid for office in the 2006 elections, the FSLN assured Nicaraguan and 
transnational capitalists that it would defend their economic interests, but in turn, they 
would have to accommodate a Sandinista monopoly of political power. Winning these 
elections, the FSLN laid out its economic program in a policy document, "The New 
Sandinista Project." According to the document, its economic policies would be based on 
linking up small-scale producers to the large-scale private sector, "respect for all forms 
of property," free trade, attracting transnational corporate investment and expanding 
agro-industry. The program was developed in close coordination with the principal big 
business association, the Superior Council on Private Enterprise, in what the government 
calls a "public-private partnership."

At the same time, the program included a renationalization of health and educational 
systems, greater social spending and other popular welfare measures, although these were 
to be doled out through FSLN patronage networks. Bayardo Arce, a former revolutionary 
leader who became the Ortega government's principal economic adviser and its liaison with 
the private sector, described the Sandinista program as "a market economy with a 
preferential option for the poor." While pursuing redistribution through social spending, 
the FSLN virtually did away with the "area of social property" first created in the 1980s 
revolution, including the state and cooperative sector, so that 96 percent of the 
country's property is now in the hands of the private sector.

Since regaining power, the Sandinista bourgeoisie has vastly expanded its wealth. Leading 
Sandinistas grouped around Ortega have heavily invested in a new round of capitalist 
development that includes tourism, agro-industry, finance, import-export and 
subcontracting for the maquiladoras. Arce, a part-owner of the agribusiness conglomerate 
AgriCorp and one of the richest men in Nicaragua, is emblematic. Moreover, another trigger 
for the April protests just days before the pension plan was announced was a public exposé 
of wealth illicitly acquired by the head of the Sandinista-controlled Supreme Electoral 
Council, Roberto Rivas, including mansions in Costa Rica, Spain and Nicaragua; three 
private jets; a fleet of luxury vehicles brought into the country as contraband; and a 
coffee plantation.

The Contradictions of Capitalism in Nicaragua
Nicaragua's current troubles are rooted in the contradictions of the country's capitalist 
development - part of the capitalist globalization that has involved a vast expansion of 
mining operations, agribusiness, tourism, energy extraction and infrastructure 
mega-projects throughout Latin America to feed a voracious global economy and swell 
transnational corporate coffers. In Nicaragua, the Ortega government has presided over 
this new round of capitalist expansion, including a wave of transnational and local 
corporate investment in free-trade zones, agroindustry, mining, logging and tourism, 
spurred on by the government's tax breaks, land concessions and other policies that have 
been praised by neoliberal institutions such as the International Monetary Fund.

Under Ortega, the exploitative maquiladora industry has rapidly expanded in free-trade 
zones, where more than 100,000 mostly young women stitch clothing for Asian and North 
American corporations and their Nicaraguan subcontractors. Transnational capitalists 
prefer Nicaragua over neighboring countries due to extremely low wages, strict worker 
control and relative political stability achieved by the Ortega government. Workers earn 
an average of $157 a month, the lowest wage of any maquiladora workers in Central America 
and estimated to cover barely 33 percent of a household's basic necessities. In 2016, riot 
police violently repressed a strike for higher wages, better working conditions and the 
right to organize independent unions, leading to an international campaign to release 
those jailed for the action.

Environmental and community activists fighting the government's concessions to 
transnational companies for large-scale gold mining projects have faced down riot police. 
Environmentalists have also joined thousands of peasants, Indigenous and Afro-descendant 
people in protesting the construction of an interoceanic canal by a Chinese corporation 
that the Ortega government granted exclusive rights to in 2013. The concession also gives 
the go-ahead to a series of subsidiary projects, such as tourist resorts, another 
free-trade zone, an oil pipeline and an international airport.

The April protests were, in fact, preceded by mass discontent over a fire that raged 
earlier in the month through 12,000 acres of the Indio Maiz Biological Reserve in the 
ecologically fragile Caribbean coastal region, described as "the most dramatic ecological 
disaster ever experienced by Nicaragua." In what political economists call a process of 
opening up the "agricultural frontier," landless peasants displaced from more settled 
areas have been encouraged by the Sandinista government to push into the Reserve and other 
environmentally fragile regions.

The "market economy with a preferential option for the poor" showed positive results in 
social indicators. Rising international commodities prices, a wave of foreign investment 
and substantial aid from revolutionary Venezuela helped sustain high rates of growth, a 
reduction in poverty and an expansion of social services. But as Venezuelan aid that 
funded social programs has declined due to that country's economic crisis, and as the 
government has extended destructive extractive industries into new territories, the 
contradictions and limitations of the Sandinistas' model have led to mounting discontent. 
As economic difficulties mount, growth rates have dropped off and the Ortega government 
has reached agreement with international financial institutions to implement an 
increasingly neoliberal program, including cutting subsidies to electricity, the 
privatization of infrastructure and reducing pensions.

But the Sandinistas' contradictory project of promoting social investment, on the one 
hand, and unfettered transnational capital accumulation on the other through concessions, 
tax breaks and repression of worker and peasant protest and political dissent is now 
catching up with the Ortega government. The Sandinista bourgeoisie faces a dilemma: Its 
class interests impede it from challenging transnational capital or organizing a 
transformative project, yet its legitimacy depends on sustaining a revolutionary discourse 
and undertaking redistributive reforms.

The Sandinista government is now the lightning rod for the depredations of global 
capitalism in the country in a similar way to what occurred under the Somoza dictatorship, 
argued prominent Nicaraguan social scientist Jose Luis Rocha in the wake of the April 
protests. "The Somoza dictatorship was a system tied to the supranational dynamics of 
capitalism whose interests it represented but that it could not control." In this regard, 
Somoza "could not be held wholly responsible for all the problems[that capitalist 
development]brought in its wake. But since the Somoza dictatorship was a system entangled 
with those dynamics and the dictator was its local representative, the people's rage found 
its concrete target in it" - in the same way that mass rage now targets the Ortega government.

Illusions of the Left
If Nicaragua's problems cannot be separated from the contradictions of capitalism, neither 
can they be separated from the long history of US intervention. From all-out 
counterrevolution in the 1980s, Washington moved to shoring up capitalist hegemony in 
Nicaraguan civil society through new forms of internal political intervention - I 
published two books in the 1990s on this topic. This type of political intervention has 
been ongoing since the 1990s and actually increased since Ortega returned to office. It 
has included funding civil society groups that are anti-Sandinista. Some of these groups 
took part in the April protests. I have shown elsewhere that such funding is aimed as much 
or more at countering any anti-capitalist radicalization of civil society than at 
undermining the FSLN leadership. In addition, Washington is particularly upset with 
Ortega's vocal opposition to US interventionism in Latin America, its support for the 
besieged Venezuelan revolution and its participation in the Venezuelan-led Bolivarian 
Alternative for America (ALBA), which the United States has systematically attempted to 
disarticulate.

Yet, some among the international left cannot seem to let go of the illusion that 
governments such as the FSLN in Nicaragua or the African National Congress in South Africa 
still represent a revolutionary process that advances the interests of the popular and 
working-class masses - this, even as the new ruling castes turn to escalating repression 
to dispossess those masses, plunder the state and impose the interests of transnational 
capital. In The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon warned that the new elites brought to 
power by national liberation movements demand that the people "fall back into the past and 
become drunk on the remembrance of the epoch" that led up to national liberation, even as 
their practices and the pursuit of their own class interests betray those historic struggles.

Some among this left have pounced on the history of US intervention to support Ortega's 
claim that the April protests and mounting unrest are the result of a US destabilization 
campaign similar to that waged against the country in the 1980s or to that currently being 
waged against Venezuela. According to this convoluted reasoning, if some in Washington 
would prefer to see Ortega replaced by a more traditional representative of the capitalist 
oligarchy, then ergo, Orteguismo constitutes a revolutionary process, and thus those who 
oppose it are counterrevolutionary instruments of US imperialism.

A more reasoned assessment came from the Latin American Social Science Council. In an 
April 24 press statement, the Council emphatically condemned the government's repression 
of protesters, and at the same time, rejected "the cynical manipulation" by the 
traditional oligarchy and the international press of the protests. They are "trying to 
capitalize on the internal crisis even though they have said nothing about the repression, 
the assassinations, and the free speech violations in Honduras" or about "the political 
repression that has claimed the lives of hundreds of social movement, peasant, indigenous, 
and environmental leaders in Central America, Mexico, and Colombia."

The real tragedy of the April protests is not that they threaten a fictitious 
revolutionary process, but that the population is caught between the corrupt and 
repressive Ortega government and the traditional oligarchy, backed by the international 
right wing which has never been comfortable with the Sandinista monopoly of political 
power and wishes to hijack the revolt to recover that power for itself. It is no surprise 
that when Ortega announced he was rescinding the pension reform, he was surrounded not by 
grassroots representatives from among the protesters, but by the owners of the free-trade 
zone companies and leaders of the Superior Council on Private Enterprise.

http://blackrosefed.org/nicaragua-development-left-mirage/

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