Anarchic update news all over the world - 18.04.2019

Today's Topics:

   
1.  France, Alternative Libertaire AL #293 - antifascism, World:
      Towards a brunette international ? (fr, it, pt)[machine
      translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  France, Coordination of Anarchist Groups CGA - Debate "How
      to think about social change? » With Aurélie Carrier (fr, it,
      pt)[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  Coordenação Anarquista Brasileira (CAB): Against the
      Genocide of the Black People and the Barbarism of the Rich! (pt)
      [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
4.  Greece, ESE: Strike April 12 - On the road along with
      students and students against an even more class lyceum [machine
      translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
5.  anarkismo.net: Brazil Under Bolsonaro: Social Base, Agenda
      and Perspectives by Ana García - The Bullet (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
6.  anarkismo.net: Some of My Past Political Mistakes by Wayne
      Price (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1





Benjamin Netanyahu, at the head of Israel for ten years now, multiplies at the national 
and international levels alliances with reactionaries of all kinds. Internationally, he is 
one of the actors in a new alliance between leaders claiming a return to order and 
morality and the same rejection of democracy and minorities while relying on the 
possessing classes and the religious fanatics. Overview of the alliances of this new 
reactionary international and xenophobic. ---- The enemies of my enemies are my friends . 
This widely used saying is now entirely justified in qualifying the meaning of the 
alliances policy pursued for many years now by various leaders from within the ranks or 
supported by parties of the so-called " government right ". ---- Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, 
Donald Trump in the United States, Viktor Orban in Hungary, Andrzej Duda in Poland and " 
patriarch " Netanyahu are the backbone of this new " Brown International " democratically 
out of the polls.

A paradox of this sad story is that these leaders, who share the hatred of democracy and 
pluralism (and we will see Muslims later), are " leaders " who owe their place to 
democratic systems, particularly but they work without Western observers (whereas they are 
found in so many other states located in the south).

They are the leaders of a West who look with nostalgia for these glorious centuries of 
domination and massacres all around the globe and dreams of new conquests against the 
lukewarm - any other Westerner not versed in authoritarianism, violence and hatred - and 
to the main enemy: Islamist terrorism (the defenders of the West who fire on a crowd 
remaining at worst criminals).

Alliances right all
The April 9 elections in Israel will be a test that will not fail to be closely monitored 
for its future consequences at the regional level but also beyond. In power since 2009, 
Benjamin Netanyahu made the constant choice to govern with religious extremists and 
nationalists. The situation of the Palestinian and Israeli Arabs has steadily worsened and 
no one has any more illusions about what is no longer daring to call a peace process.

Netanyahu's bias is simple: to make an alliance against what he considers to be " Arab " 
interests . Leaves, as in 2015, to dismiss the responsibility for the Holocaust on the 
great mufti of Jerusalem (also opportunistic ally of the Nazis it is true). In the face of 
Netanyahu's recent accusations in various cases of fraud, corruption and breach of trust, 
the latter perseveres. He is directly involved in the alliance of two extremist movements 
(Otzma Yehudit and HaBayit HaYehudi) that will allow more extremist MPs to enter the Knesset.

Netanyahu's position in Israel today was very opportunely reinforced by Donald Trump's 
election at the end of 2016 at the head of the United States. Netanyahu had during the 
campaign (was it interference ?) Taken very directly for the billionaire reactionary, 
racist, homophobic, etc. The latter once elected directed the policy of his administration 
towards a recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel. A real crossing 
of the Rubicon in the form of a symbolic burial of the hope of the Arabs to have a 
legitimate right to live on the land of their ancestors. The two men also find themselves 
in their equal hatred of the Iranian regime, which has once again become the center of the 
evil empire.

In July 2017, it is to Central Europe that Netanyahu will form a new alliance with the 
Hungarian leader Viktor Orban. The opportunist handshake of these two heroes of a new 
anti-Muslim crusade obliterates the anti-Semitic hints of the statements made by Orban 
against Soros, who is also hated by the two leaders. A meeting at Orban's initiative with 
the Czech, Slovak and Polish leaders was even to be held in the wake, but tensions between 
Poland and Israel about the Holocaust did not allow this quintet to finally see the light 
of day .

Brazilian Jair Bolsonaro and Israeli Benjamin Netanyahu, two pillars of the reactionary 
fraction of capitalism with Trump and Putin. (Reuters)
Another wedding that it would have been a shame to finally miss, the one that celebrated 
the end of December 2018 the new " fraternity " with Brazil Bolsonaro - the reserve 
captain nostalgic military dictatorship (1964-1985) and whose love of the A military thing 
is matched only by its hatred of a good part of its population: women, homosexuals, 
blacks, indigenous peoples and the pedagogue Paulo Freire.

These two lighthouses of the Judeo-Christian white West are envious of fruitful economic 
and military collaborations. Charmed by the reception of his host, Netanyahu was lyrical: 
" Together with other countries like the United States, which have an ideology similar to 
ours, we have everything to help us and bring benefits to our countries . " I must say 
that Bolsonaro was the day after his election announced, like it had done the United 
States in May 2018, his desire to see the Brazilian embassy moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The end of a historical process ?
Their hatred of multiculturalism, minorities (whether national, religious or sexual), 
disorder (in a very broad sense), debate (in a broad sense) rank them on the side of the 
most traditional far right. But far armed coups that during the XX th century allowed the 
emergence of authoritarian powers in Europe and South America, often to save the interests 
of the capitalists of the " Red Scare " reactionary leaders are legally out of polls. 
Some, like Netanyahu, even saw their election confirmed later.

Should we see in it the end of a historically marked process of the leniency of a segment 
of the bourgeoisie who saw in the electoral circus and the democratic polish the 
conditions of its maintenance at the controls ? The retreat of revolutionary forces and 
ideals and collective aspirations for emancipation now leave the field open to the 
expression of the violence of the ruling class. Representative democracy appears for what 
it is: an instrument that has become obsolete in the eyes of many, whose historical role 
was to break class solidarities in the name of a national interest that is only the 
interest of the dominant. Yes but ! It's shaking in the neck, the bad days will end. And 
park ! to revenge when all the poor will get there ...

David (AL Grand Paris South)

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Monde-Vers-une-internationale-brune

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Message: 2





Saturday, April 20, at 18h, at the bookstore the Bad Reputation, 20 rue Terral, the group 
Another Future of the Coordination of Anarchist Groups will receive Aurélie Carrier to 
present us his book Le Grand soir , Editions Libertalia, 2017.
This book proposes to study the representations that make up the imagination of the Grand 
Soir, in the golden age, and their interactions with that of the general strike, at a time 
when the worker' movement aims to revolutionize. Returning to this moment in history can 
help us think about the break today, in connection with social movements and their evolution.
http://www.c-g-a.org/content/debat-comment-penser-le-changement-social-avec-aurelie-carrier

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Message: 3






Evaldo Rosa, a black worker, musician, came back from a social engagement with his family. 
Those in charge: Army soldiers who patrolled the neighborhood and reportedly still mocked 
the family after the action. ---- The slave system, embraced by the rich in the nineteenth 
century, laid the foundations of the structural racism of the elites and today remains a 
scourge. The Brazilian black population is the majority, but continues to suffer the 
effects of a class society, built on the foundations of white supremacism. ---- No 
government in this country has set out to profoundly alter the framework in which black 
people live. Police violence is one of the pillars of the ongoing genocide committed more 
than 500 years ago by the Brazilian state.
These acts of violence provoked by the elites continue to deepen
under the tutelage of Jair Bolsonaro at the federal level and Wilson Witzel at
the state level, who increasingly give carte blanche to the police and
Brazilian military to kill. Since the Temer government decree
authorizing the military to be punished only by military justice,
if they are in operation by the executive branch, a state
of exception has been perfected for the poorest, a portion of the people composed mostly
of the Black population. The data confirm that the military and police
feel more comfortable to shoot and kill, especially when
targets are black. The number of deaths by intervention of
State Agents in Rio de Janeiro to date is the largest in the historical series,
begun in the year 2000! In January 2019, police killed 160 people,
an increase of 82% over the previous month.

They use typical means of military dictatorship, mainly used against
the poorest, allied to the structural racism incorporated in the
institutions of (in) security of the State.

However, it is important to note that cases like Evaldo's are not new.
Are the 111 shots that killed the boys of Costa Barros in 2015, whether
the shot killed the boy Eduardo in German in 2015 or the shot that killed
Maria Eduarda inside a school in Acari in 2017.
Different governments but the same project of the genocidal state.

We can not accept that no black worker, nor black youth,
be massacred by capitalist barbarism, articulated to racism and
white supremacy!

We need to strengthen acts that repudiate this death, which punish those
responsible (squares and officials) and stop the extermination of black people
in Rio de Janeiro and Brazil.

Against the genocide of the black people, no step back!
It is not an accident! It's a state project!

https://anarquismo.noblogs.org/?p=1074

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31377

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Message: 4






It is amazing how the present government in all areas distorts the meaning of words. The 
reform of the Lyceum, and especially of its last class, to "rationalize" is a prime 
example. ---- The third grade is explicitly designated as a preparation class - or better 
training - for final exams. With incredible cynicism, the left-wing government abolishes 
an entire class of general education from high school. While today's non-Hellenic courses, 
which are degraded by the exam-centric system, can contribute to the cultivation and 
political formation of pupils, in the New Lyceum, course lessons, which have utilitarian 
value, are leading the timetable. With the Greek exception of the religious ones, which 
survive, in a curriculum that considers the lesson of History, Biology or Informatics 
unnecessary. This aspect of the reform is just funny.
With the monopoly of the program from the Orientation lessons, the whole year will be a 
marathon, with the exam. And whoever endures. Besides, this is also an objective. 
Educational policy makers inside and outside the border consider that in Greece the 
percentage of pupils attending general high school is very high compared to those who are 
oriented towards vocational training. And to change that, the high school must be 
difficult for most children.
This direction, the creation of a clear class general high school, also serves the change 
in the in-school examinations leading to the high school diploma. With exams being 
conducted at the school level, with draws, with supervisors and correctors from other 
schools, it is a brake on the ability of all children to obtain a high school diploma. 
Very soon many children choose not to attend a general high school and turn to 
deliberately degraded vocational schools and post-secondary training, creating an army of 
young, almost unpaid workers through apprenticeship and internship.
The change in the way to obtain a baccalaureate is ideologically supported by invoking the 
left-true truth! - the principle of meritocracy. Meritocracy requires that no one is 
required to work for an unskilled worker, because only one has access to it only with the 
high school diploma. This society, in which work is perceived as a privilege and not as a 
right, is a wonderful truth. Another point is the inexperienced teachers of public schools 
that we promote to the classes and eventually we give a certificate to all children, even 
to children with disabilities, special educational needs, particularities in behavior, or 
simply to students and students who are unable or refuse to respond the demands of sterile 
high school academy.
The government has managed to overcome another long-standing demand of the educational 
movement, that of free access. Establishing free access to higher education institutions, 
calls on students early to moderate their expectations and decide not to go into the 
Pan-Hellenic Exam. Rather, they ask them to admit their position in the social pyramid by 
directing them to less demanding schools, regardless of whether they meet their interests. 
Over time, privileged people have free and easy access to schools that really care about 
them - with the reward, both inside and outside borders. Free access sections are 
transformed into the poor relative of higher education, with supply and demand criteria.
Finally, do we want nothing to change?
None of us claims that things should be left unchanged. It is necessary for the Lyceum to 
be disconnected from the embarrassment of entrance examinations in Tertiary education. But 
to make this possible, there is only one requirement. Abolition of the entrance 
examination. The really free access to Higher Education. This is, in fact, the only 
condition for the abolition of the impassivity and the class barriers, which also 
highlights the education of children. As long as the criterion of admission to a 
university faculty is not your interest in the subject, but how much more capable than 
your neighbor is to respond to an endless series of evaluation processes, the paradise 
will not only be reduced, but rather enlarged, as much as possible the hours of 
orientation courses.
To acquire high school, its educational role needs to open the way for students to science 
and social and political formation. It needs to give students the right to choose, but a 
choice that is related to their interests, not to the devastating competition between them 
for a post at the university. We want a creative school that allows children to discover 
their potential, experiment and become acquainted with themselves, without being asked to 
evaluate them for it. We want a school without evaluation, without penalties and praise, 
where student-student relationships between students will be free of rejection and 
competition. We want a school open to society, not to the priests, mayors and 
corporations. We want a school liberated from state control, but not self-financing on 
market terms, not an "autonomous school unit" under the terms of neoliberal restructuring. 
We want a school run by the Teachers' Club and the pupils, not the manager managers with 
ever-expanding powers. We want a school for all children that marries theory with 
practice, which does not degrade manual labor and does not raise class barriers in 
education. We want school to be universal, neither "general" nor "professional". We want a 
school that cultivates children's aesthetics and morality, competing with the capitalist 
logic of "each for himself", embracing children with the values of companionship, justice 
and solidarity.
That's why we stand against every educational reform that is dictated by the reactive 
aspirations of the neo-liberal, sovereign order. Together with students and parents, they 
will find us in front of them.
For a school of solidarity, freedom, dignity
We participate in the strike-support of the local ELMEs
Eleftherial Trade Union Union - Diaconal of Athens (education sector)
Eleftherian Union of Teachers of Thessaloniki
Eleftherial Union of Educational Associations of Rethymno

https://ese.espiv.net/

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Message: 5





The rise of the far right is a worldwide phenomenon, rooted in the nefarious effects of 
neoliberal globalization which have pushed the world into mass unemployment and enormous 
inequalities. I consider it to be a late political effect of the global financial crisis 
that hit the world at the beginning of the twenty-first century. ---- It is not an easy 
task to explain the phenomenon of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and to understand the groups 
that support him, both within and outside government. It's difficult, for anyone, to draw 
a truly complete and sober analysis of what we have experienced. This essay is not based 
on in-depth research but on collective reflections and debates. I intend to pose some key 
questions and try to identify some clues to answer them. ---- Despite its innumerable 
concessions to the bourgeoisie,[1]why was the Workers Party (PT) attacked by the 
right-wing forces, creating space for the emergence of "Bolsonarism"?

First of all, the effects of the 2008 economic crises were felt quite late, but they were 
profound in Brazil. Low commodity prices and economic slowdown had a perverse effect on 
employment levels. The GDP dropped 7.2 per cent between 2015-2016, and unemployment 
reached 12% during the 2018 election year. The economic crisis also generated a political 
crisis, which led to massive street demonstrations in June 2013, and it recently turned 
into an ideological crisis.

On the bourgeois side, the crisis revealed its deeply anti-social and truculent character. 
The modest gains that the poor had made in terms of social rights during the PT 
governments (yearly increases in the minimum salary, access to higher education, racial 
and social quotas, labour rights for domestic workers, income transfer programs, resources 
for the poor North and Northeast regions, etc.), were forcefully repudiated by upper 
classes in large urban centers and by the rural bourgeoisie linked to agribusiness. It was 
not acceptable, in their view, that Afro-descendants, Indigenous or Northeastern 
working-class individuals and families could sit side by side with white Southern 
upper-middle class students in a university classroom or travelers on an airplane. The 
difference between ‘us and them' had gotten blurred in social spaces, even though the 
material-economic differences were still very deep.

The ideological crisis is not limited to the upper social classes; it is even more evident 
among the middle and lower-middle classes. These classes had enjoyed high levels of 
consumption, access to university and formal employment during the best moments of the PT 
era (2002 - 2016). However, with the economic crisis, these social strata lost their 
material gains, and today, they make up a mass of unemployed and precarious workers who 
suffer from low quality public services.

This mass of workers without rights (typified by Uber drivers or informal cosmetics 
saleswomen) channeled their feelings of anger and rancor toward the PT (anti-petismo). 
Among this precarious working class, conservative values - anti-feminist, anti-LGBTQ and 
anti-communist - were strengthened and reinforced by the proselytism of evangelical 
Pentecostal churches and the diffusion of ‘fake news'.

In addition to all this, traditional political parties, even right-wing parties, are 
experiencing a crisis of representation. The first signs of this crisis became evident 
during the protests of June 2013, which, along with claims for basic rights to 
transportation, health and education, brought out anti- political party sentiments or, in 
a more general way, an ‘anti-politics' stance. The diffuse notion that ‘politics implies 
corruption' has become very widespread. The inefficiencies of politics were to be solved 
through merit and personal efforts, the idea of 'meritocracy'.

This crisis of representation deepened after the 2014 general elections, and it penetrated 
the impeachment process of Dilma Rousseff in 2016. Precarious workers do not identify 
themselves as ‘working class', let alone identify with the ‘Workers Party'. Eventually, 
these ‘workers without rights' identified themselves ideologically with Jair Bolsonaro, 
who has managed to occupy the ‘empty space' of politics. The ‘anti-politics' feelings 
disseminated among the popular masses were then filled with an over-politicization based 
on hatred. Bolsonaro presented himself as a charismatic leader who would liberate them 
from ‘all ills' and resolve the nation's problems as the leader who came from the 
‘people', a simple person who shared their language, tastes and culture. By communicating 
through social media, Bolsonaro generates a sense of closeness to his supporters.

A second aspect that the ‘Bolsonaro phenomenon' reveals to us are the limitations of class 
conciliation. In different parts of the world, the moderate left and social-democratic 
parties in government, on many occasions, have shared this illusion of the possibility of 
class conciliation. In the case of the PT, it was possible to respond to the interests of 
the different social classes up to a certain point and under particular economic 
conditions that allowed for the expansion of public spending. But in the long run, and 
with the impact of the economic crisis, class conciliation did not hold up. Historically, 
the balance will always weigh to one side, and in Brazil, it turned against the PT itself.

Without being able to maintain a conciliation of interests, neither could the Brazilian 
state during the last PT years sustain cohesion between the different factions of the 
ruling class. This is a third aspect of the current situation that has to be considered. 
The creation of large national monopolies that benefitted certain sectors to the detriment 
of others (for example, credit from the national development bank, BNDES, was given to 
some construction conglomerates), the government's attempts to artificially stabilize 
energy and gas prices, the regulation of oil and gas exploitation at the Pre-Sal 
coast,[2]etc., were among the policies that showed excessive (from a market perspective) 
state intervention in the economy, leading to contradictions between different factions of 
the bourgeoisie.

These contradictions are the central challenge for the sustainability of Bolsonaro's 
government: does it or does it not have the capacity to organize the interests of 
different factions of capital and represent them as the interests of the entire nation. 
All this points to the one who is in charge of this task, the Minister of the Economy, 
Paulo Guedes (discussed below). Proposed pension reform and labour reform would be 
cohesive bourgeois projects against the interests of the workers.

Who makes up Bolsonaro's social base?

The election of Bolsonaro and many parliamentarians linked to religious groups reveals the 
growth in the political power of evangelical Pentecostal churches. This growth had been 
evident in municipal and regional elections for decades, but it reached its highest level 
in the last election. The churches provide a solid social base for conservatism in the 
urban peripheries where they did grassroots work during the campaign. There are reports of 
cults where a pastor promoted Bolsonaro and his allies directly, distributing campaign 
pamphlets together with church pamphlets against abortion, etc. On the day that he won the 
election, Bolsonaro began his speech with a prayer led by an evangelical pastor, live on 
national television. For the left, the question now is how to rebuild the work at the 
grassroots and re-establish a dialogue with the poor in the favelas and in the 
peripheries, and in the churches, to counter reactionary groups.

Another fundamental support base for Bolsonaro is provided by the petty bourgeoisie, 
including the commercial and the retail sector, as well as liberal professionals, such as 
lawyers, doctors, engineers, etc. These are sectors that are directly affected by high 
taxes and the costs of labour and social security rights. There are some significant 
examples, like the mobilization and protests of Brazilian doctors against the PT social 
program ‘More Doctors', which had been bringing Cuban doctors to work in remote, 
under-served areas of Brazil, and the 2018 truckers' strike against rising fuel prices, 
which had the effect of stopping deliveries and crating supply shortages throughout the 
country. There have also been several demonstrations calling for "military intervention."

In addition, there were some grotesque episodes that involved different segments of the 
petty bourgeoisie during the electoral campaign: Luciano Hang, owner of Havan department 
stores, called a meeting with his employees during which he tried to coerce them into 
voting for Bolsonaro with the threat of closing stores; a businessman promised free lunch 
at a churrascaria for employees if Bolsonaro won; the owner of a house of prostitution 
offered a "free beer" on the day after the election if the results were positive for his 
candidate.

In the countryside, Bolsonaro had broad support from large agricultural producers and the 
agribusiness sector. In addition to their economic and ideological affinity (support for 
the liberalization of weapons and the criminalization of peasant movements), this sector 
also has a cultural affinity with Bolsonaro, exemplified by the support of national 
country music stars for Bolsonaro. In this regard, there was also a regional division, 
with the South and Central-West agricultural provinces leading in the votes for Bolsonaro, 
while provinces in the Northeast, and partially in the North, voted mostly for PT.

In urban areas and big cities, the middle classes and precarious workers, as already 
mentioned, formed a mass base that had improved its consumption power during the PT years 
but lost employment and purchasing power in the crisis and was forced to migrate to the 
informal market. They became a strong base of support for Bolsonaro, driven by ‘anti-PT' 
ideology.

The financial sector and large corporations expressed support for Bolsonaro only at the 
end of his campaign. Other ‘outsider' names for the presidency had been tested but didn't 
succeed. Bolsonaro's frightening method of doing politics with inflamed speeches of hatred 
and violence[3]was countered by his sponsorship of an ultra-liberal economist, Paulo 
Guedes. Guedes had graduated from the University of Chicago and, as he presented incisive 
arguments for privatization, cutting public expenditure and shrinking state bureaucracy, 
he gained support in the upper bourgeoisie. As a newspaper article pointed out, Wall 
Street would have preferred PSDB candidate Geraldo Alckmin, but Paulo Guedes would 
guarantee, in the eyes of international financial markets, the necessary reforms and 
privatization of the last state-owned companies, such as Petrobras. In this sense, a 
Bolsonaro government would be the first truly - and contradictorily - liberal government 
in Brazil.

Bolsonaro and his group managed to combine, in a peculiar way, ultra-conservatism in 
political and social values with ultra-liberalism in economic terms. It is certain that 
this combination was present, for example, in the Bush administration since 2001 in the 
USA. In Latin America, Pinochet pursued economic ultra-liberalism in the 1970s. In Brazil, 
however, it is unprecedented, especially in light of the participation of the military in 
Bolsonaro's coalition, which has been, traditionally, nationalistic with regard to the 
economy.

How did Bolsorano succeed despite the irrationality of his discourse and all the 
international pressure? What were the principal means for his victory?

First, the mobilization of fear was fundamental: fear of communism, fear of feminism, fear 
of weakening ‘traditional family values', fear of urban violence, fear of land invasions, 
fear of losing jobs ... all fueled by class, race, and gender resentments.

The alleged threats were operationalized by non-traditional ways of doing politics and 
campaigning, the same ones used for Brexit and in the election of Donald Trump, but 
adapted to Brazilian conditions. Central to the strategy was the diffusion of fake news 
via Whatsapp, which has become the most capillary form of communication in Brazilian 
society today.

The spread of fake news did not create, but it increased exponentially the more 
conservative values to be found in the bosom of Brazilian society. During the past year, 
we have experienced extreme levels of stigmatization and demonization of feminists, fueled 
by conservative values regarding the traditional family; an environment of violence and 
murder of LGBTQs (445 murders with homophobic motivation in 2017); and a vague and 
confused idea that Brazil was heading toward communism, generating a strong anti-communist 
ideology. It has reached the point of glorifying the torturers within the Brazilian 
civil-military dictatorship (1964-1982/88) and creating a present threat of ‘communist 
dictatorship' emanating from the PT. For us on the Left, the question remains: how did we 
not see all this coming, to react in a timely manner and confront the massive 
dissemination of fake news in Whatsapp groups among our families and friends.

Second, Bolsonaro and his groups have succeeded in channeling the anti-corruption ethos 
and the demand for ‘change' to their advantage. The so-called ‘Car Wash Operation' scandal 
revealed corruption schemes among construction companies and the state oil company 
Petrobras. Public officials and the PT were directly implicated. The Judiciary assumed a 
mediating and political role that is unprecedented in the country's political history. 
Less known are the international linkages of the scandal, especially to U.S. interests 
whose role still needs to be clarified, specifically the interests of oil multinationals 
to end Petrobras special rights over the exploitation of the oil reserves of the ‘Pre-Sal' 
region. These were all openly discussed issues[4]that led to jailing of national PT 
figures and to a moral defeat of the entire Left.

The arrest of Lula da Silva marks the culmination of that defeat. Lula's imprisonment is 
eminently political, given the speed with which his condemnation and imprisonment were 
carried out. Moreover, there is a lack of solid evidence against him, since his trial was 
based on allegations of other politicians and businessmen already in jail. With Lula 
leading the polls, there was a slimmer chance for Bolsonaro to actually win. Once Lula was 
prohibited from running, election results in favor of Bolsonaro were almost a given.

It is in this context that Bolsonaro sought to convince the Brazilian electorate that he 
would be a new kind of political leader who would build a government with people of proven 
technical merit in their companies and in public institutions. He claimed he would end the 
practice of appointments based on political-ideological affinities. Obviously, this has 
not happened. Instead, one ideology has been replaced by another. Again, Bolsonaro has 
managed to occupy the empty space in politics.

How is the Bolsonaro government formed, under what pillars and groups?

The restructuring of the Brazilian state began with substantive changes in its 
institutional and bureaucratic structure. A ‘super-ministry' of the Economy was created, 
resulting from the merger of the Ministries of Finance, Planning, Industry and Trade, and 
Labour. All are now under the command of an ultra-liberal figure, Paulo Guedes. Within 
this super-ministry, a number of new councils, committees and secretariats have been set 
up, following the new economic line. These include the ‘Secretariat of 
De-bureaucratization' and the ‘Secretariat of De-nationalization and De-investment'. Their 
agenda includes plans for privatization of state-owned enterprises, pension reform, 
deepening of labour reform, greater trade liberalization and access to Indigenous land for 
mining corporations.

At the same time, many of the State institutions created by the PT government and linked 
to social and labour sectors have been dismantled. These include the Labour Ministry, 
Ministry of the Cities and Urban Planning, the National Council of Food and Nutrition 
Security, Ministry of Culture, the agency for Indigenous issues FUNAI and the Ministry of 
Agrarian Development.

These changes in the institutional materiality of the state were accompanied by many new 
appointments to public offices. Far from following electoral promises of appointment based 
on technical merit, the new appointees were chosen on political and ideological grounds. 
Two main groups are central to the occupation of state posts. First, representatives of 
the military were spread in all ministries, occupying one-third of the high-ranking 
positions, either as ministers or in other key posts. Among the ministries headed by 
military appointees are Defense, Mines and Energy, Science and Technology, and 
Infrastructure and Institutional Security, as well as the vice-presidency.

The other main group, in apparent dispute with the military sector, is made up of 
representatives of the ultra-conservative ideology linked to Olavo de Carvalho, a 
proto-philosopher who resides in the U.S. Carvalho gives courses online, is linked to 
Steve Bannon and is highly influential among Bolsonoro supporters. Bolsonaro's son, 
Eduardo, is playing the role of articulator for this group, as he was designated by Bannon 
as the principal leader of ‘The Movement' of the far-right in Latin America. The strong 
influence of Bannon and Olavo de Carvalho became evident after Bolsonaro's visit to the USA.

Two of Carvalho's former students were named as heads of two key ministries: Education and 
Foreign Affairs. In Education, ultra-conservative followers of Carvalho and 
representatives of Pentecostal churches aim to combat ‘gender ideology' and ‘Marxist 
indoctrination' in schools and universities. The Minister of Education has recently 
declared that school history textbooks will be revised to tell ‘the truth' about the 1964 
Coup E'tat and the subsequent 21 years of military dictatorship, arguing that it was 
supported by a broad social movement and succeeded in freeing Brazil from communism. In 
Foreign Affairs, they defend patriotism against multilateral negotiations (as in the case 
of climate change or migration), but the limit of this patriotism is in direct alignment 
with Trump and Israel. Ideologically, they intend to combat what they call ‘cultural 
Marxism' and ‘globalism'.

Despite the apparent dispute of ‘Military vs. Olavistas', both groups within the 
government are united in the ultra-liberal economic agenda, despite the military's past 
nationalism. Evidence is provided by the concession of the Alcântara base for U.S. 
military use, the sale of Embraer to Boeing and the support for the pension reform.

What are the government's main projects as presented to date?

The first major agenda item is the pension reform. Its pillars are the higher minimum age 
for retirement and increases in social security contributions. The big argument has been 
the ‘end of privileges', with reference to the benefits of public versus private sector 
employees. What is really involved is a reduction in the role of the state as the 
guarantor of pensions, an increase in overexploitation of the labour force (40 years of 
contributions to social security as prerequisite for receiving a full pension) and the 
introduction of capitalization, which means insurance company participation even for the 
poorest. According to the head of the Congress, "everyone can work until they're 80 years 
old." This shows total insensitivity and class blindness, since the average life 
expectancy in Brazil is 70 years.

Two other projects in the economic area will also have a devastating impact. One is the 
possibility of untying the budget from the constitutional spending clauses on education 
and health. Currently, the Brazilian constitution stipulates that 18% of the national 
budget be spent on education and 13% on health. If the government succeeds in eliminating 
these clauses, Brazil's Congress will decide how the budget is allocated, without any 
obligation to these sectors.

Another economic project with potentially devastating effects is the new labour regime. It 
would allow workers and employers to negotiate bilaterally, without considering collective 
bargaining. Workers would lose collective rights to negotiate working conditions. In 
addition to undermining the bargaining power of unions, this project perversely poses the 
choice between maintaining guaranteed rights or having one's own job. The so-called "green 
and yellow labour card" would be an alternative to the formal (blue) labour card with 
collectively bargained constitutional rights.

Another major project is the public security program. A change in legislation has already 
taken place to permit the carrying of weapons, and the security program aims to target 
organized crime groups. The project signals a growing criminalization of social movements 
and heightened anti-terrorism measures. In the countryside, violence against activists and 
militants of social movements led to the murder of 57 activists in 2017. On the other 
hand, the project also mentions the fight against paramilitary forces, called militias, in 
urban centers. Yet, one of Bolsonaro's sons, Flavio, when he was a deputy in the state of 
Rio de Janeiro, hired for his office two members of the militia group accused of being 
involved in the murder of Marielle Franco. Beyond this, one of the two men arrested for 
murdering Marielle was found in his house in the same condominium where Bolsonaro lives in 
Rio. The relationship of Bolsonaro and his family to the paramilitary groups needs to be 
investigated, but there is no sign of this being done by former judge Moro and his team in 
the Ministry of Justice.

The ultra-conservative agenda on gender, feminism and LGBT rights is being implemented by 
the Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights (formerly Human Rights Secretariat). This 
Ministry is led by a representative of a Pentecostal church and will have strong impact on 
education, health and social rights.

Finally, it is worth mentioning an exponential increase in the use of agrochemicals in 
Brazilian agriculture. This impacts directly on food quality and the health of the 
population. There is a reinforcement of rural settlements policies that changes land that 
facilitates private property titling, and further attacks on Indigenous peoples and 
quilombolas (historic Afro-Brazilian settlements) with the termination of Indigenous land 
demarcations and titling.

What are the contradictions among these different groups? What contradictory effects might 
their different agendas have?

Although the above-mentioned projects make up an ultra-conservative field, they often do 
not fit well together. There is no cohesion among the groups in the state structure under 
Bolsonaro. Different projects are not organized into one single front, and Bolsonaro may 
well prove himself incapable of organizing the interests of the different class factions 
that are now disputing his government.

On the external front, groups linked to Olavo de Carvalho want to align Brazil closely 
with the U.S. and Trump. This was confirmed during the recent visit to Washington. The 
Alcantara base, in the state of Maranhão in the Amazon region, was opened to the U.S. 
military. Americans and Canadians will be exempt from visas to enter the country. Brazil 
wants to integrate into the OECD, to the detriment of alliances with countries of the 
South. Together with other conservative governments, Bolsonaro has dissolved the Union of 
South American Nations (UNASUR).

This leading foreign policy group stands side by side with the U.S. in containing China's 
economic expansion in Latin America and the world. However, China is Brazil's main trade 
partner, accounting for 25% of Brazil's total international trade. Sales to China became 
deeply concentrated in exports of agricultural and mineral commodities during the PT era, 
and in the last months, 90% of Brazil's soy exports went to China due to restrictions on 
U.S. soy in the Chinese market. In this sense, ideological impulses clash with economic 
ones, and Brazil stands in the middle of the U.S.-China trade war.

With regard to the Venezuelan crisis, the ultra-conservative wing was restrained from 
direct intervention by the military groups within the government, which resisted the 
impulses of the ultras out of concerns for regional destabilization.

The evangelical Pentecostal groups are demanding that Brazil move its Embassy in Israel 
from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, with strong support by groups linked to Olavo de Carvalho. 
Arab countries, however, are the main importers of chicken meat produced by Brazilian 
agribusiness. The announcement about moving the Embassy generated reactions in the Arab 
world, including threats to cut imports, and the move did not go ahead. Instead, Bolsonaro 
announced the opening of a commercial office in Jerusalem.

Additionally, agribusiness corporate interests and their protectionist bias against the 
entry of foreign competitors, and against changes in import tariffs, clashed with the 
liberal bias of the Ministry of Economy, which sought to eliminate milk import tariffs. 
The Ministry had to retreat under agribusiness pressure.

Finally, the package of public security measures was sent to the National Congress, but 
its president has resisted a vote on them, prioritizing the pension reform instead. This 
has created tensions between the Legislative and Executive Branches, in the figure of the 
Minister of Justice, who was head of the Car Wash Operation, thus implying tensions also 
with the Judiciary Branch. The financial sector, which had high expectations of rapid 
action on pension reform, was disappointed as the reform was given less priority in 
comparison to other issues, such as Bolsonaro's foreign agenda. The stock market has 
dropped as journalists comment on how market agents "cannot understand the direction of 
the government."

The election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil impacts on all of the Latin American region. Just 
as Lula's election in 2002 influenced the start of the ‘pink tide' period at the beginning 
of the century, today, the far-right in Chile, Uruguay and Venezuela (to name a few) 
becomes stronger because of the political turn that Brazil has taken since the impeachment 
of Rousseff in 2016. To be sure, the sustainability of the Bolsonaro government will 
depend on its capacity to organize the interests of different factions of the bourgeoisie 
and to present these as representative of the interests of the entire nation. He has not 
been capable of doing this so far. The international crisis scenario and popular struggles 
could destabilize his government even more. Bolsonaro and his allies were united in their 
determination to overthrow the PT but lost (or never had) control over the boat's direction.

Endnotes
[1]Such as high interest rates and different benefits to the financial sector, large 
public credits to private monopolies, moderate (yet important) social policies that had 
the effect of social appeasement, among others.
[2]Enormous oil reserves underneath the sea on the coast of Brazil.
[3]Guedes was not known in the Brazilian mainstream until very recently. According to 
Joana Salem and Rejane Hoeveler in an article at Le Monde Diplomatique Brasil, he 
graduated in Chicago in 1978, but his thesis was never published and didn't receive much 
attention. He started teaching at the University of Chile in 1980 under the Pinochet 
dictatorship. It was exactly in the 1980s that Pinochet started the pension reform in 
Chile, forcing Chilean workers to deposit 10% of their salaries in private pension funds. 
Today, 30 years later, 90% of Chileans do not receive a full minimum salary when they 
retire. About one thousand Chilean elderly committed suicide in the last five years. 
Symptomatically, this is the first and major project conducted by Guedes as Minister of 
Economy. In the case of Chile and in the project of pension reform presented to the 
Brazilian congress by Guedes, the military is excluded. Cf. Brasil, novo laboratório da 
extrema direita.
[4]One of the first measures under the government of Michel Temer, after the impeachment 
of Dilma Rousseff was completed in August 2017, was to change the regulatory framework for 
the exploration of the Pre Sal areas, breaking with Petrobras's obligatory participation, 
and opening more space for Exxon or Shell (explicitly quoted by Temer) to have more 
participation in the coming auctions. Cf. Com regras mais claras, leilão do pré-sal cria 
expectativa positiva na economia.

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31381

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Message: 6





Re-evaluating a 1985 Dialogue on Anarchism and Marxism ---- In the 1980s I participated in 
a "dialogue" about anarchism and Marxism. Re-reading my writing now, when I am a 
revolutionary anarchist, I think that much of what I wrote then was wrong--with one 
exception. I went over certain key issues, such as the strengths and weaknesses of 
Marxism, the state, the revolutionary party, election participation, and national 
liberation--topics which are still important for anarchists and other radicals to consider 
and debate. ---- In 1985, I participated in a "dialogue" between the unorthodox-Trotskyist 
organization I was then a member of and an anarcho-syndicalist organization. The topic was 
"Where do anarchists and Marxists differ, and can we learn from each other?" From my 
current perspective as a revolutionary anarchist, I now believe that much of what I then 
said was wrong.

By the mid ‘fifties, the radical organization I was a member of-the Revolutionary 
Socialist League-no longer felt comfortable describing itself as Trotskyist or Leninist. 
We had held a libertarian-democratic-proletarian interpretation of Marx, Lenin, and 
Trotsky. Almost all the other Marxists interpreted them as authoritarian and statist (and 
were for this). We were no longer sure that we alone had the correct (radically 
democratic) interpretation of Marx and key Marxists, while most everyone else was wrong.

To help us reassess our politics, we reached out to the anarchist movement. We 
participated in several continental anarchist gatherings. We made contact with members of 
the Workers Solidarity Alliance (then the Libertarian Workers' Group in New York). Like 
us, they were revolutionary and based their politics on working class struggle, while 
supporting other struggles against oppression. This led to a forum where both 
organizations expressed their views, later reprinted in the WSA's journal, ideas & action, 
(Winter 1985, no. 5; pp. 16-27). I spoke for the RSL and Mike Harris for the soon-to-be-WSA.

At the time I was in the process of developing my thinking, as were others in the RSL. We 
had never been orthodox Trotskyists. We never accepted Trotsky's opinion that the Soviet 
Union under Stalin was still somehow a "workers' state" due to its nationalized property. 
Instead, we had developed a version of "state capitalist" theory. We had always emphasized 
what we saw as the radically-democratic and libertarian aspects of Marxism. This included 
the goal of a classless and stateless society and the view that the working class must 
free itself rather than rely on elite saviors. We downplayed the authoritarian aspects. We 
had strongly supported women's liberation and LGBT liberation.

Now we were in the process of evolving from unorthodox Trotskyism to anarchism-although 
individuals developed their own perspectives. (See Taber 1988.) We did not yet call 
ourselves anarchists, preferring the term "libertarian socialists" and saying we were for 
"participatory socialism." (I was somewhat unusual in that, before I became a Trotskyist, 
I had been an anarchist-pacifist in high school. So I had some background in anarchist 
theory.)

Re-reading what I said and wrote about 25 years ago, I find that I still agree with the 
basic values expressed then. With my other comrades, I was for a bottom-up international 
revolution of the working class and all oppressed people, to create a free, cooperative, 
ecologically-balanced, and radically democratic society. I still am. But on almost all the 
specific questions in this discussion, I was mostly wrong-with one significant exception.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Marxism

While increasing critical of Marxism, I still believed that it had valuable lessons for 
revolutionary libertarian socialists. Speaking for the WSA, Harris also wrote positively 
of "our synthesis of anarchism and Marxism....We agree with the basic marxian critique of 
capitalism." However, he emphasized, "we are more anarchist than Marxist." (23)

I wrote then that the strength of Marxism was its analysis of how capitalism worked-Marx's 
"critique of political economy." Marx's theory could lead to an understanding of the 
post-World War II period of prosperity and its crisis-ridden end, of the period we are now 
living through. It made it possible to understand capitalism's drive toward ecological 
catastrophe. Strategically it explained the importance of the modern working class and its 
tendency to become self-conscious and to struggle for human freedom. (However, a 
"tendency" is not an inevitability.) While some former members of the RSL have since 
rejected all of Marx's Marxism, I still believe this. (See Price 2013.)

The main weakness of Marxism which I then mentioned was "the same search for historical 
patterns...when the patterns are seen as rigid, objective laws, the ‘inevitable' path of 
development, about which we can be 100% certain. With such a view, the struggle for 
socialism no longer requires workers' self-consciousness and freedom....Socialist 
revolution ceases to be something that people do; it becomes something which happens to 
them." (18)

Such teleological determinism leads to authoritarianism, opportunism, sectarianism, and 
elitist repression. Whether it is a "fair" interpretation of Marx is beside the point. 
This fatalist determinism does appear in some aspects of his work (even if not in all of 
it). It was adopted by the mainstream of the Marxist movement (both social democracy and 
Stalinism) and even by some of the more libertarian Marxists.

While this criticism of Marxism is an important insight, it is somewhat abstract. I should 
have also pointed to the weaknesses in Marx's program. Marx believed in workers' 
democracy, but he saw this as being implemented through a centralized state. He advocated 
that the workers establish a party which would take over the state-either the old one 
through elections or a new one through revolution. The state would nationalize and 
centralize the economy. He predicted that this state would-eventually-die out as a 
repressive, class-based, institution. But there would still be some sort of (presumably 
benevolent) centralized planning body. This was stated in the Communist Manifesto and 
never fundamentally altered.

Some of Marx's work pointed in a more radically democratic and decentralist-federalist 
direction, such as his writing on the 1871 Paris Commune. But right after the defeat of 
the Commune, he began a campaign to get the First International to establish workers' 
parties in every country it could, in order to run in elections and to try to take over 
the existing European states. The anarchists opposed this state-oriented, centralizing, 
program, which is why Marx expelled Bakunin and other anarchists from the First 
International. However much Marx believed in workers' democracy, his program naturally led 
toward the pro-imperialist, statist, reformism of the social democrats and then to the 
totalitarian state-capitalism of Marxism-Leninism.

The State

I agreed with the radically-democratic version of Marx's view of the state, which still 
accepted the need for a state. Our interpretation was based on his writings about the 
Paris Commune, and on Lenin's State and Revolution (Lenin's most libertarian-democratic 
work). Like anarchists, we believed that the existing states (the capitalist states) 
should be destroyed by the workers and oppressed and replaced by new, 
participatory-democratic institutions. Workplace councils, community assemblies, 
democratic militia units, and voluntary associations, should federate to create a new 
social power. This would be different from any state which had ever existed, because it 
would be the self-organization of the big majority. It would not be a 
bureaucratic-military-police elite machine, standing apart from and over the people, 
serving the interests of a ruling minority. It would not be the traditional state. I am 
still for this perspective.

However, like Lenin I continued to call this popular institution a "state" (the 
"commune-state"). I recognized the need for institutions to carry out certain tasks which 
the state had done in class society: social coordination, cooperative decision-making, 
protection against armed capitalist restorationists and against anti-social individual 
actors, etc. But as anarchists pointed out, by calling the proposed council-system a 
"state" I denied the big differences between the self-organization of the workers and the 
repressive elitism of all past states.

By accepting that the working class needed a "state," then-like Lenin-I opened the way to 
accept more bureaucratic-statist-forms of a "state." Lenin wrote in State and Revolution 
that the revolutionary state would "immediately begin to wither away," but when he got 
into power he (and Trotsky) created a one-party police state. This laid the basis for 
Stalin's totalitarianism. In my essay, I quoted several of Lenin's more 
libertarian-sounding statements, without clearly stating my opposition to the main aspects 
of his strategy, especially his state-building.

The Party and Elections

I made a similar mistake when discussing "the party." I believed that revolutionary 
libertarian socialists should gather themselves into a democratic federation. This would 
help them to develop their theory and programs and to coordinate their activities, as they 
worked among broader organizations (unions, community groups, anti-war movements, etc.). 
This is sometimes called"dual-organizationalism." In anarchism, it goes back to Bakunin's 
Alliance for Socialist Democracy, to Malatesta's arguments with the syndicalists, to 
Makhno and Arshinov's "Platform," to the Spanish FAI, and to Latin American especifismo. 
It is not counterposed to the self-organization of the workers and oppressed but is a part 
of the process.

Yet I (mistakenly) continued to call this a "party." This overlooked the difference 
between this conception and that of the traditional "revolutionary vanguard party" of 
Leninism. The anti-authoritarian revolutionary political association does not aim to take 
over the popular organizations. It does not aim to "take power" over society, through 
either elections or revolution. It does not want to create a new state. Rather it urges 
the people to organize themselves, to take over society for themselves, to form 
self-governing mass movements, and to reject the elitist politics of all the political 
parties (left, right, and center) which do want to become the new rulers.

On elections, again, my comrades and I were in general agreement with the anarchists in 
the abstract. We rejected "electoralism" (or "parliamentarianism"), the belief that the 
working class and oppressed could take over the state through elections, and then use the 
state to begin socialism. "U.S. capitalist democracy was not built so that workers could 
take capital away from the capitalists." (22) It was built so that the factions of the 
capitalist class could resolve conflicts and make decisions (without relying on a dictator 
or civil war), and so that the working people could be fooled into thinking that they run 
society themselves. In particular, the Democratic Party has repeatedly served as a trap to 
capture left-moving movements, to enmesh them in state and capitalist politics, and to 
kill them off.

However, I still thought that it could be useful for a revolutionary grouping to run in 
elections, not to get elected but to use them as platforms to spread revolutionary ideas. 
I did not consider that this also spread the idea that even revolutionaries believe that 
elections are real reflections of popular power. It also spreads the idea that people 
should rely on political leaders to speak for them, to lead them, and to be elected in 
order to go to far-away places in order to be political for them.

I also spoke of the possibility of a U.S. labor party or a Black party, in which 
revolutionary libertarians should participate. I did not consider that such parties, in 
personnel and in programs, would continue the reformist, pro-capitalist, politics of the 
Democratic liberals, union bureaucrats, and African-American "community leaders." This 
would simply be a third capitalist party, existing to head off independent mass action by 
a rebellious population. Like Sanders or Warren today, their programs would be wholly 
inadequate to deal with the crises we face.

I actually used the example of the German Green Party, as something which-if it developed 
in the U.S.-we would want to participate in. Since then, the German Greens have been 
ministers in the German imperialist government. Following the logic of 
government-participation, they have supported foreign wars and generally betrayed their 
principles.

Today I do not try to persuade friends, family members, and co-workers to not vote. 
Individual votes do not amount to much. Nor does it matter how the few radicals in the 
U.S. voted. But I argue that we should advocate a non-electoral program for large masses 
of people: for the unions, the African-American community, organized environmentalists, 
feminists, the LGBT community, the anti-war movement, immigrants, etc. This would include 
union organizing, general strikes, and mass demonstrations. As Mike Harris argued, 
"Wouldn't it make more sense if movements used direct actions such as sit-ins, sit-downs, 
disruptions, occupations, and so forth to make some headway?" (24)

National Liberation

The most stubborn disagreement I have had with many anarchists, including the WSA, was 
over "national liberation." Harris wrote, "We find it hard to accept that revolutionaries 
should support all movements for national liberation ‘regardless of who is leading them.' 
....There can be no middle ground." (24-25)

Let me outline my views, which I still hold (as do most other former members of the RSL). 
(See Price 2017.) In particular, "national liberation" (or "national self-determination") 
is not the same as "nationalism."

Nations exist and people identify with their nations (whether we want them to or not). A 
minority of nations oppress the people of other nations. Some nations are directly 
oppressed by other countries which occupy and "own" them, as was true under colonialism. 
This is still the case for Palestine, the Kurds, Puerto Rico, Tibet, Chechnya, and so on. 
Under modern neo-colonialism, most nations have political independence but are dominated 
politically and economically by the big imperialist powers. The people of such nations 
(who are mostly workers and peasants) do not want to be dominated and exploited by the 
ruling classes of other countries. They want national liberation. They want to decide 
their own fate ("national self-determination").

There are various programs which are proposed for such liberation. The most common is 
"nationalism." This is the belief that the main issue is the oppression of the nation, 
which is treated as a bloc, downplaying divisions of class, gender, religion, or minority 
nationalities. Its goal is for each people to have its own national state and national 
economy (traditional capitalist or state capitalist). This results in a new ruling class 
and state with the continuation of internal exploitation, and continuation of 
international exploitation by the world capitalist market (dominated by the U.S. and other 
imperialisms). Revolutionary libertarian socialists reject the program of nationalism. We 
oppose the nationalist misleaders of the struggle who will take the people into this dead-end.

Instead, we believe that only a world-wide revolution of the working class and all 
oppressed people can free all nations, end all imperialism and national oppression, and 
bring about true national liberation-along with other freedoms. That is our program. We 
are for saying this.

When an oppressed people fight against an imperialist power, we should be in solidarity 
with that people, on their side against the oppressor. Our solidarity should not depend on 
whether they agree with us (are for internationalist anarchism rather than statist 
nationalism), but on their struggle against oppression. Meanwhile we should seek to win 
them over to our program of internationalist revolution. (This is, obviously, a general 
statement of principles, not a discussion of tactics and strategies to be carried out by a 
revolutionary grouping in any specific national setting.)

Our attitude is similar to our solidarity with workers who go on strike under the 
leadership of a conservative business union. We criticize the union's bureaucrats and 
conservatism, we oppose its leadership, but we are in solidarity with the workers. And if 
the state jails union officials, we "support" the bureaucrats against the state and the 
capitalists in the immediate situation, because this is really an attack on the workers. 
But we are the political opponents of these officials.

Contrary to the ignorance of many anarchists, this view is consistent with anarchist 
tradition. Michael Bakunin asserted his "strong sympathy for any national uprising against 
any form of oppression...every people[has the right]to be itself...no one is entitled to 
impose its customs, its languages, and its laws." (quoted in van der Walt & Schmidt 2009; 309)

Peter Kropotkin wrote, "If we say no government of man by man, how can[we]permit the 
government of conquered nationalities by the conquering nationalities?" (quoted in McKay 
2014; 45-46) Iain McKay writes, "Kropotkin was a supporter of national liberation 
struggles....Anarchists, Kropotkin argued, should work inside national liberation 
movements in order to...turn them into human liberation struggles-from all forms of 
oppression, economic, political, social and national...the creation of...a free federation 
of free peoples no longer divided by classes or hierarchies." (2014; 45-47)

Errico Malatesta was an influential Italian anarchist who had been a comrade of Bakunin 
and Kropotkin. He wrote, "We are internationalists...so we extend our homeland to the 
whole world...and seek well-being, freedom, and autonomy for every individual and 
group....Now that today's Italy invades another country[Libya-WP]...it is the Arabs' 
revolt against the Italian tyrant that is noble and holy....We hope that the Italian 
people...will force a withdrawal from Africa upon its government: if not, we hope that the 
Arabs may succeed in driving it out." (In Turcato 2014; 357) This did not imply agreement 
with the Arabs' leadership.

During the wars which followed the Russian revolution, Nester Makhno and other anarchists 
organized a military resistance in Ukraine. Their forces opposed the capitalists and 
landlords, integrating these class issues with a Ukrainian national war against German, 
Polish, and Russian invaders. Similarly, during World War II, Korean anarchists organized 
a military resistance to the Japanese invaders.

As Lucien van der Walt summarizes, "One anarchist and syndicalist approach...was to 
participate in national liberation struggles, in order to shape them, win the battle of 
ideas, displace nationalism with a politics of national liberation through class struggle, 
and push national liberation struggles in a revolutionary direction." (van der Walt & 
Schmidt; 2009; 310-311) That means, in a revolutionary, internationalist, libertarian 
socialist, direction.

In Conclusion

The Revolutionary Socialist League continued for a while, until it dissolved, with some of 
its members joining anarchist organizations (Love and Rage, then NEFAC, etc.) Some former 
members now put out the journal The Utopian. We did not merge with the Workers Solidarity 
Alliance, which continues to exist.

I came to identify myself as a revolutionary anarchist, who has been influenced by 
libertarian-autonomous Marxism. Over time I have changed my views more often than I like 
to admit, always trying to do better. I am not ashamed of my mistakes. My values and 
overall goals remain the same.

References

McKay, Iain (2014). "Introduction." In Direct Struggle Against Capital: A Peter Kropotkin 
Anthology (ed. I. McKay). Oakland CA: AK Press. Pp. 1-97.

Price, Wayne (2017). "National Self-Determination, Internationalism, and Libertarian 
Socialism" Anarkismo
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/30659?search_text=Wayne+Price

Price, Wayne (2013). The Value of Radical Theory: An Anarchist Introduction to Marx's 
Critique of Political Economy. Oakland CA: AK Press.

Taber, Ron (1988). A Look at Leninism. NY: Aspect Foundation.

Turcato, Davide (ed.) (2014). The Method of Freedom; An Errico Malatesta Reader (trans. P. 
Sharkey). Oakland CA: AK Press.

van der Walt, Lucien, & Schmidt, Michael (2009). Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class 
Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism. Oakland CA: AK Press.

*written for www.Anarkismo.net

http://www.anarkismo.net/article/31379

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