WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY News Journal Update - (en) Italy, UCADI #171: Anarchist communism and territory (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 The relationship between anarchist communism and the territory constitutes one of

the theoretical and strategic nodes of the political intervention of anarchist
communism and of its ability to take root in the territory and therefore in the
social base which constitutes the point of reference for any political
intervention of a libertarian nature involving the populations in managing the
action to improve living and working conditions in a liberally oriented society.
Anarchist communism has not resolved this dilemma and has often taken refuge in a
political intervention of a general nature aimed at subverting social and
productive relations, at making the class struggle evolve in the direction of
social revolution, but then it failed, or at least found many operational
difficulties in the constructive and implementation phase of the revolutionary
action, even though the problem of the transition between the old society against
which it exercised its destructive function and the new society and the new
social relations that it wanted to build and which faced history .
A careful critical reflection on the institutional problems that the different
forms of state and government present today can perhaps help to understand what
the solution is, in which direction we must move and act, what the tactical and
strategic action of the communists should be anarchists on the territory to go in
the direction of giving life to new forms of institutional and social
relationships that are more respectful of the participation of the inhabitants of
the territory in the management of social life, aimed at direct action, at the
assumption of responsibility by everyone in social life collective of its
economy, social and productive relationships.
Looking at the various institutional systems of governance, it is noted from many
sides that a convergence is taking place in the methods of governance systems -
under the pressure of the need to speed up the decision-making processes hindered
by participatory forms of government - which are also in crisis due to the
slowness of decision-making processes, evidence is growing disaffection of those
entitled to vote on the occasion of electoral deadlines. There is no doubt that
institutions are perceived less and less as being close to the populations and
therefore participated by them, through forms of delegated voting, according to
the so-called Western systems of government or even through the residual popular
democracies or even in systems of government that we could define democrature,
i.e. systems characterized by a centralized and managerial form of government
which has the advantage, at least on paper, of allowing rapid decision-making and
reaction times to the needs emerging from the development of social and
productive relationships, from the need to make decisions necessary to overcome
the management problems of the company that gradually arise. In other words, the
difficulties of making a management system of the participated company, of
delegated democracy, however defined, which allows effective management of social
and productive relations and of the governance of the company.
If this is true, the phase of destruction and contrast to the current systems of
government can and must be used by anarchist communism, as it has always been, as
a moment of construction of the alternative, and this can happen by inserting in
the battle against existing institutions, elements that in some way foreshadow
the future management of the company to be built. Objectives and themes of social
struggle must therefore be identified which allow, starting from the lowest level
of operations of the institutions on the territory, to set up a dispute and a
social clash which, intervening on the most immediate and tangible problems of
the management of social problems, allows us to hypothesize and prefigure, while
pursuing these objectives, a concrete path of construction of an alternative
management of political relations between populations and institutions.

The intervention on the territory today in Italy

Anarchism has been characterized by the inability to address local problems at an
institutional level since dealing with the territory passed through the
relationship with the most basic territorial management bodies such as, for
example, the municipalities, or local administrations, however denominated . In
truth, it was Camillo Berneri who grappled with these issues, albeit in
approximate and in some ways rather crude forms, who wondered what anarchism
should do in the municipalities and came to hypothesize a participation in the
municipal electoral contest for the purposes to establish, albeit with a series
of participatory additions to the elective political activity, through
verification assemblies of which the elected undertook to respect the
resolutions, by way of delegates, a direct relationship with the inhabitants of
the territory. This working hypothesis remained in an embryonic state, both due
to the coincidence of the proposal with the revolutionary period that Berneri
lived in 1936 and when he formulated it which did not allow it to be tested, but
above all because his voice was silenced about the heinous crime perpetrated
against him by the Stalinists in Spain.
The fact then that these territorial management structures were either elective
or, even worse, the appointment of the central power posed further problems for
anarchism, insurmountable in political intervention, since it imposed the
necessary passage constituted by the confrontation with electoralism and
therefore with the need to form a political association which it accepted
delegated participation, elected by any electoral system; these concepts were
rejected on a theoretical level as an expression of delegated activity which
denied the principle of direct action and first-person participation in the
management of political action. Faced with the difficulties in realizing the
hypothesis of theoretical and strategic updating, it was therefore preferred to
abandon the problem, waiting to face it in better times and free from
conditioning represented by immediate insurrectionary action and by the
difficulties of a civil war which at that time was tearing apart the territories
in which anarchism sought to develop its social and constructive action.
For this reason, the political action of the anarchist communists in the area was
characterized by disputed dispute initiatives, constituted by the expression of
political autonomy in the area and therefore aimed more at the demolition
activity than at the realization and construction of new and shared institutions,
capable of constructing and concretely configuring an alternative to the order
and existing political institutions, with the only positive result of stimulating
direct participation in political life for the management of one's rights and
interests, limiting oneself to using these experiences as a pedagogical tool of
education to struggle, without grasping the many other positive aspects.
The only solution to the problem was identified in self-management, an instrument
certainly effective in a revolutionary phase but destined to perish in a
capitalist social context and therefore not usable in a phase of transition
towards the search for new structures and institutional balances of a
participatory nature.
Today the time seems to have come to use a different starting point: the
litigation that can also be developed using bourgeois law, building participatory
mobilization actions that on the one hand make participation grow and develop and
on the other spread awareness of the objectives pursued and the right to pursue
them, linked to a strategy that allows the goal to be achieved and therefore to
demonstrate that the struggle pays off, that the action in the first person is
qualifying and capable of producing positive effects. It follows that in support
of the claiming action, where possible, organizes and supports a legal dispute by
acting both in the civil and administrative, labor and, if necessary, also
criminal courts. Hence the use of legal disputes not only as a technical tool for
the defense of rights, but also, instrumentally, as an opportunity for people to
gather, as a means of organization, to direct towards collective action.
The collection of mandates to investigate the legal dispute is an opportunity to
produce political aggregation. The debate that precedes and accompanies the
collection of signatures for participation in an action in the legal field gives
the possibility/need to organize meetings for clarification, for in-depth
analysis of the issues covered by the dispute, debate, collective and conscious
growth. The collection and possession of postal and telematic addresses,
telephone numbers and their use, if carefully managed, constitutes a formidable
tool for stimulating participation and militancy, it is capable of producing
organization and aggregation, comparison of ideas, mobilization.
The discussion by the shareholders before and after the drafting of an appeal on
the merits of the dispute, the drafting, before the hearing, of the briefs of the
case and of the various legal documents - from a simple formal notice to a writ
of summons and/or formal notice - constitutes an opportunity for discussion and a
tool for understanding the problems for an ever-increasing number of subjects
involved, clarifies that a right must be supported by fighting, produces
collective growth, reinforcing the belief that the institutional way of
protecting rights is possible and capable of producing positive effects under the
condition of a first person mobilization, spreads the conviction of the
retributive value of mobilization, struggle and civic engagement, ultimately
reinforcing the role and trust in collective action,it shows that the struggle
pays off through positive and tangible results, it shows that "utopia is possible".

The choice of goals

In order for the path just outlined to be feasible, it is necessary to proceed
with a careful choice of the objectives to be pursued, taking care of the
feasibility of the dispute, since self-awareness can grow on the part of the
populations, it must be remunerative and feasible. It is therefore necessary that
the objectives identified are real, that the needs to which they refer are felt
and shared; then the fact that these objectives are often limited and
circumscribed does not prevent the effectiveness of pursuing them and above all
of realizing them. Care must be taken to choose shared problems that concern the
generality of the associates or at least significant fractions of them, so that
participation in the mobilization is unanimous and effective, visible, because
the power feels the need to satisfy the requests when these are shared and allow
to maintain the minimum consensus necessary to continue to guarantee its action
of domination. This desire for control and management by power must be opposed,
but also used and exploited, reversing its negative effects on those who claim to
use it as an instrument of domination.
To achieve this result it is necessary to proceed primarily with the inquiry,
i.e. through a careful census of the needs expressed by the community, taking
care to establish an order in tackling the various problems that has at least two
reference parameters: the urgency of satisfying the need that underlies the
request and the feasibility of the dispute, calculating the chances of success
that this has in the face of a mobilization involving the community, the possible
points of failure of the initiative and the consequences on the morale of those
who fight.
It is necessary to privilege the moment of participation and involvement in the
claiming action, which at times can be limited even to suggesting possible
solutions, demonstrating the greater rationality and ability to govern the
community, through the participation of the inhabitants of the territory who
simply ask and manage to obtain the rationalization of the performance of the
public authorities which sometimes, foolishly, the power of politicians,
precisely because they are distracted in pursuing collective interests, do not
glimpse, although there is no economic cost in the intervention.
Capitalizing on the result of interventions on real issues must be one of the
objectives to be pursued, taking care to develop a progressive action of taking
over the management of the territory, through education and example, constituted
by the objectives identified and pursued, thus demonstrating the concrete
feasibility of a government of the territory and of its management achieved
through direct action and the choral and collective participation of the inhabitants.
This is why political action must be accompanied by activities of solidarity and
concrete cooperation between the users of the services and what the territory
offers, thus demonstrating that another society, that other social relationships,
are possible and feasible.
It may happen that by intervening in the area in this way the conditions are
created in which the request is received from the associates to take part in the
institutional management of the area through participation in the elections, an
event which cannot be excluded a priori, given the successful development of the
political intervention that generates the request. In this case, however, the
political organization that manages the intervention on the territory
(collective, citizens' assembly, militants of the political organization), cannot
exhaust its role by transferring its activity to the delegated and elective
relationship, i.e. by delegating all the resources of mobilization and
participation in institutional representation, but identifying within it, within
its ambit, people, subjects,
territory they have given themselves.
This is a form of political action and "delegated" participation which, perfectly
in line with the principles and strategic and tactical articulation of political
activity under the banner of anarchist communism; it is nothing other than the
organized and responsible participation of all in the collective management of
the territory through non-utopian but perfectly feasible forms of organization,
through and under the banner of responsible and shared participation.

Institutions spread across the territory and political intervention

The political anti-electoralism of anarchism led him to consider the
institutional presence on the territory as represented by the basic unit of
territorial management and that is by the municipality, but the institutional
management of the territory is something much more complex which uses entities
and structures delegated to provide specific services often characterized by
management that is often the result of participatory action. With regard to these
bodies, political intervention cannot be limited to monitoring and contesting
their actions, but can and must take the form of a proposal, especially when
these bodies have recourse to self-government management systems through elected
bodies.
It follows that the intervention on the territory of the anarchist communists
cannot do without identifying as an objective of action, the intervention on the
management bodies, for example, of the health services, those of the school
service, on the consortium activities, as well as on the management of personal
services, such as those relating to transport, and to all sectors in which it is
possible to intervene by bringing proposals, organizing forms of participation,
opening disputes with the management bodies, forcing these bodies to deal with
the request for participation and management shared the activities carried out in
favor of users. This means identifying in the health management bodies, in those
of the school service, of the bodies and companies that manage transport,
Intervening with critical activities aimed at the management of these structures
means developing a participatory form of land management which educates in direct
action and which makes it possible to address the needs of the populations, and
more specifically, the needs for climate control, supply water, waste management,
environmental protection, lands on which the social participation of subjects
living in the territory is exercised.
This awareness allows anarchist communism, as a political proposal for
participation, to organize intervention on the territory, allowing the widest
possible participation in the collective management of it.
In subsequent interventions we will develop sector by sector hypotheses and
methods of participatory political intervention in which those who make political
reference to anarchist communism will hopefully be able to engage.

The editorial staff

http://www.ucadi.org/2023/05/29/comunismo-anarchico-e-territorio/
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