(en) Organisation Communiste Libertarie - Courant alternatif #232 - Bure: RENEWAL OF STRUGGLES antinuclear? (fr)

Since the camp "Valogne" and anti-THT struggles, a new generation of antinuclear appeared 
on the ground, far away supporters of the establishment of a nuclear lobby against relying 
on the Greens and environmentalists institutions with propaganda in the direction of 
public opinion blaming individuals (a summary of the network "phase out nuclear power"). 
This nascent movement has identified a very clear objective: Deny by all means the burial 
of nuclear high-level waste (HLW) and ILW-LL (average long-lived) in Bure, a small village 
on the edge of the Meuse and Haute Marne in a region where desertification is well 
underway for decades. ---- Some small reminders ---- Recall that on the ground, in 1994, 
the general counsel of the Meuse and Haute-Marne put the slippery slope of burying nuclear 
waste in their basement.

As usual, local officials were bought by nucleocrats gradually will try to gain a foothold 
in the population playing the non-information and disinformation, practicing blackmail 
economic development, hiding the major challenge of final burial of the worst nuclear 
waste to allow the continuation of a nuclear power program. On 19 August 1999, Voynet 
Green Minister of Plural Left in Power signed a decree authorizing the Bure laboratory 
against, it seems, a moratorium on Flamanville. We saw that it gave ...

The construction of this laboratory began in 2000 as part of the Battle Act 1991 for 
research on the management of radioactive high-level waste. The National Agency for 
Radioactive Waste Management (Andra) conducted experiments in the lab and support the 
feasibility of a geological repository at a depth between 300 and 500 meters underground. 
The strategy of the opponent is then es-classical: Informing people, to massively sign a 
petition calling for a referendum and try to convince elected officials. In 2005, 45,000 
voters Haute-Marne and Meuse are calling for a referendum. The elected two departments sit 
on .... Legal remedies are many times ... They filed are rejected! There have been a 
"national public debate" in 2005 on the management of nuclear waste put forward preference 
for the study of maintenance of these surface ... But the law that followed in 2006 
included only burial in Bure.

The decision to boycott a new public debate

In 2013, it's been 20 years that the people of these two departments are colonized by 
Andra. The process is long but instead of giving up, the opposition-are becoming 
radicalized. A new public debate is announced May 15 to July 31 and September 1 to October 
15, 2013. It is organized by the National Commission for Public Debate (CNDP) which 
entrusts the animation ... Andra Andra is now carrying the Cig?o project: industrial 
center of radioactive waste in deep geological formations. It is fifteen public meetings 
whose premiere is scheduled for May 23 at Bure. The following must take place in nearby 
cities Bure then be held in places already colonized by nucleocrats. Added to this is the 
opening of a website "participatory debate." Obviously, the CNDP was not to decide "on the 
merits of the projects submitted to them" even if Andra announced that "nothing has been 
decided" since "the final decision will be made in 2018" by Parliament ! There are only 
fools, dishonest taking for granted what speech Andra. The opposing es therefore decided 
to actively boycott the chagrin of the Greens and other opponents of wanting to stay 
within the law (Republican ...).

An active and effective boycott

Thursday, May 23, at Bure, in the inauguration of the public debate. Special atmosphere in 
this small village of 90 residents who came to see no less than 130 cops (including 10 
mobile police vans besides local gendarmes and police in civilian domestic intelligence 
...). The hall 1 000 000 radioactive too small, in fact more than 200 between es are also 
present. Inside the President of the CNDP launched the meeting, once the voices, and 
surprise, the local PCF starts hostilities. Fifteen minutes later, the committee 
suspended. Officials are forced to leave under the protection of police. President CNDP 
fled through a small dirt road!

In a statement, the CNDP announced that differs the next two appointments Saint-Dizier and 
Joinville. She wants to organize a roundtable with all actors involved in the two 
departments Cig?o project. Yet invited to the table, the opponent es this project 
continues to boycott and organized by opening a website (cigeout.com), launching an online 
petition and mobilizing against the next public meeting in Bar-le-Duc scheduled for June 
13. Not ready the CNDP will finally see this debate June 17

Issues

The CNDP threatening opponent es for the remaining 13 meetings must be held. "This debate 
is a truce, a sacred moment in a democracy", "we will take the necessary means for people 
who intend to disrupt can not do it ...". To achieve this, apart from the force, the 
Commission proposes that the order of speaking meetings gives priority to the expression 
of the public and that the platform involved conflicting experts and not only the project 
leader, Andra. Obviously, the Commission recalls that "the final policy decision is not 
granted. Will there be a Cig?o or not? The question remains open. " If you look closer, 
the issue of the public debate goes beyond Cig?o. The CNDP admit: "if it was not 
necessary, it would go very serious institutional obstacles knowing that the debates ahead 
thereafter focus on GMOs or shale gas." Let it be!

"Get out! " On 17 June, 400 people were present in the hall breweries Bar-le-Duc excluding 
service important safety and well visible. Andra is not the forum but first. Interventions 
independent experts or opponents are planned. From the outset, the CNDP lets say 
committees of opponents who give heart joy. Representatives opposed the landfill elected 
recover 60,000 petitions to the President of the CNDP. Then Patricia Andriot, Regional 
Councillor of the Greens Europe Ecologie, mounted the rostrum. Three quarters of the room 
up! Equipped with whistles, yelling "referendum" or launching the now famous "releases" 
his words are inaudible. Finally comes a certain Gerard Longuet (UMP senator of the Meuse, 
ex-New Order), the room is unleashed and he goes booed, continued in the parking lot.

The second public meeting ends well. It lasted less than three quarters of an hour!

The next day, a press release, the CNDP decided to postpone the meeting to be held 
Thursday, June 20 at Nancy. Their debate will continue in new forms: meetings near (? Such 
as "Tupperware") debate "interactive" on the Internet ... As for associations between es, 
they will travel to Nancy, June 20, against organizing a panel discussion on the street. 
We have just learned that the CNDP has also cancel debates Cherbourg Ligny en Barrois 
(Meuse) and Chaumont (Haute-Marne)

However, to date, for its upcoming "public debate", the CNDP gives us an appointment on 
September 5 in Saint Laurent des Eaux (Loir et Cher) on 10 September Bugey (Ain), 
September 19, at Marcoule ( Gard) on September 23 in Paris on October 3 Commercy (Meuse) 
and concluding on October 10 Echenay (Meuse) ... But nothing is less certain ... The 
summer and early fall will be hot ! Contact: burestop.free.fr

Denis - Reims 25/06/13

Inset

The Burial of those who will die tomorrow This is the title of a pamphlet of 32 pages, 
published in May 2013 by "All Nucleocrats Are Bastards! ". This is a contribution to the 
fight against the proposed radioactive waste disposal in Bure. To put the 
"mouth-watering", here is the bridging of its conclusion: "If today's debate on the 
implementation of Cig?o, geological dump Andra is a farce The project is real and it works 
well. The start of drilling is planned for 2018. The first waste should arrive in 2025. 
The machine is launched: it is time for us to organize to stop the massacre "..." If the 
nuclear power industry as need to start burying the waste quickly is to continue to 
produce "... "No no police or without nuclear experts. Therefore possible revolution in 
nuclear society? Nuclear sign it the triumph of authoritarianism? Between scientism and 
defeatism is the struggle. For if the revolutionary possibilities seem now darker than 
they have been by the past, unable to live in this world is about to anticipate the 
funeral of one of the humanity - not yet born - can not let us sleep in peace. " Found on 
the Internet by his choice of authors, copy of this brochure and its distribution are 
they, welcome. To obtain it: allnucleacratsarebastards@riseup.net or you can write to: OCL 
/ egregore, PO Box 81213, Reims cedex.

(en) France, Alternative Libertaire AL #229 - Dismissals: To veto the councils (fr)

Cope with redundancies, Partners Industry has initiated a campaign to veto works councils 
on this issue. A claim that draws prospects. ---- Recent months have handed out several 
claims against redundancies. Political organizations, associations or groups, trade 
unions, each advanced his "solution." Remember first of all that there can be no single 
answer. The immediate demands are meaningless unless they are backed by a struggle for a 
total transformation of the company, except to confine themselves to poverty and social 
crisis rather than fight. However, to achieve the expropriation of the employers and 
impose egalitarian redistribution of wealth, we need to draw the transitional 
opportunities that enable to get there. ---- In the meantime, there are two categories of 
claims, with the landmark as "economic", which is the rationale for companies to justify 
dismissal.

If they lay off, is that they have no choice, and play everything on this point for some. 
According to them, it should be banned, it is the dismissal "stock" ... Missed! The case 
law has largely banned since business can not dismiss to increase profits - at least it 
should give other reasons, even if it is hidden reason.

Different options

It has, on one side, those who want to ban layoffs in companies that make profits on the 
other those who want to ban all short redundancies. Between the two, little connection, 
the first not seeing their claim as a step but as an end. Limited to companies that make 
profits is to underestimate the complexity of accounting, financial and legal 
arrangements, but also the decision-making power of the employer on the use of money in 
the business. It is also a tactical error, as it further justify further layoffs: the 
employee-es, therefore, to pay for the rules of a game they have not accepted. Last 
debate, there must be a law? Appeal to the state to regulate social relations?

Alternative

There is now an alternative to reach a collective veto works council (EC), on the 
initiative of Industry Partners. Require new rights for employees and their 
representatives, are in a self-management perspective to regain control of his daily 
choices and his company, this is the way it should be supported, recalling the predominant 
role of trade unions. Those who decide to work. More than thirty years after the Auroux 
laws [ 1 ], to fight in unity to restore the power and tools to employees es gives voice 
and do not deprive of their means of action in everyday life. Veto the EC, as the first 
step of a veto employee-es, is a significant element in building a relationship of forces, 
which he will give echo to get to weigh in an optical transformation of society.

RobertK (AL Montreuil)

[ 1 ] Four laws enacted in 1982 that, while not revolutionary, brought many positive 
changes for workers, especially in terms of representation and expression in business.

(en) Brazil, COLETIVO ANARQUISTA LUTA DE CLASSE ---- RETURN Circle of Libertarian Studies 30 July (pt)

After a period of withdrawal due to "the street called" our militancy, Circle of 
Libertarian Studies is back! 3rd Meeting of the CEL year 2013 July 30, the 18: 30
Where: Santos Andrade, room 205. ---- Reading: Anarchist theory and anarchist ideology 
This meeting aims to differentiate initial theory and ideology these concepts, which 
according to our current are distinct. Purpose of this meeting is to introduce the notion 
of anarchist ideology, as well as (s) theory (s) anarchists. Finally it is to establish 
the relation existing theory and ideology. ---- IDEOLOGY-WHAT? ---- Uruguayan Anarchist 
Federation (FAU) ---- -The story in view of the anarchists in the book The Story 
anarchists Chapter II ---- Anderson Romario Pereira Corr?a ---- Download here: 
http://coletivoanarquistalutadeclasse.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/cel-iii.pdf

Photocopy here: Street Amintas de Barros 192 (Copier Rectory), folder Circle of 
Libertarian Studies.

Learn more:

The Circle of Libertarian Studies (CEL) has emerged as an area of ??study in January 2011, 
with the purpose of discussing "the political activity of the classical theory and 
contemporary Anarchism, (...) strengthening class perspective, autonomous, socialist and 
militant of exploited classes in their cultural and intellectual. " With two meetings per 
month and previously read texts by its participants, the group has had some success in 
that it proposed to do, becoming even "per table", a reference to the new comrades 
interested in proposals of organized anarchism. From 2012 CEL became a space connected to 
the Class Struggle Anarchist Collective (CALC), thereby continuing, open to participation 
of workers who want to dwell on the study of social movements and participation of 
libertarian socialists in the same . Now in 2013 following a program set texts intend to 
improve the quality of our meetings, contributing also to assist the formation of 
theoretical anarchist militancy here in Curitiba (PR).

Returned in 2013 with monthly meetings in the last Tuesdays of the month, always 18:30

Brazil, [Florianopolis] Community in Serrinha struggle for housing and decent life by Anarchist Collective Black Flag (pt)

"If there is no equality for the poor, there is no peace for the rich! -- Rotates the 
Bahian speaks louder! -- Descend the hill and occupies the asphalt!" -- (Word of 
community order, which occupied the asphalt in the demonstrations of July 11.) -- In 
recent weeks came up through the corporate media, the demolition order, by the 
Municipality of Florian?polis, the houses that had been built for permanent preservation 
area, on top of Morro da Cruz. The housing deficit in Florian?polis, real estate 
speculation and the high price of rents boosted families and workers / them to occupy the 
site, between the high and Serrinha Caieira the bag Lemons. The occupation began about 
eight months. ---- Gradually, he increased the number of families to build their homes on 
site. In an attempt to escape the rent, the families did benefit the timber, purchased 
materials and began to build houses in joint effort, one by one, they were soon occupied 
by a new family so they were ready.

It was more of a silent occupation that developed in massive Morro da Cruz, long waits for 
the construction of affordable housing, as promised COHAB would house 300 families on 
site, with initial term delivery in 2011, but whose works have not even begun . Needless 
to say, this number is totally insufficient to meet demand. However, the presence of 
government in occupancy came in another way: the calm was interrupted by the sound of the 
chainsaw to cut wood and knocked the houses, at the behest of a City Hall tax and under 
the watchful eyes of military police.

The defense of nature can not be an excuse to evict the poor from their homes and the 
city. The entire occupation of the hill, and even most of the city was made in default of 
environmental legislation. However, the weight of the law falls only upon the poor, while 
luxury condominiums continue to spread the environmental protection areas. The housing 
were felled without warrant, under the false claim that the buildings were empty. 
Moreover, the officers claimed that all the houses there would be felled and removed families.

"Removed where?" The wonder / the residents / s, since there is a housing policy for 
low-income people in Florianopolis. The Minha Casa Minha Vida in Florian?polis only built 
two projects and none of them is intended to track income neediest, 0-3 minimum wages. 
Official figures estimate the housing deficit in just over 5000 units, but they are very 
outdated. Considering the inadequate housing, population growth and the demand that is 
forced to the peripheries of other cities in the metropolitan area, the Greater 
Florian?polis has tens of thousands in the same situation.

Families come in contact with the housing struggle of Florianopolis, close to the comrades 
of the Occupation of St. Joseph and Contested other / social activists, are conducting 
weekly meetings and going to the streets. Decided to organize and initiate a process of 
struggle for housing rights that are denied to the poor. The City Council, who first 
sought the overthrow homes without a warrant, is now seeking legal action to remove the 
families in the name of environmental preservation. The community is joining forces with 
other movements and struggles / social ones, because he knows that only changes the life 
and struggle will be resisted. When living is a privilege, a right to occupy it!
Fighting, create, popular!

Video Neninho, resident of Occupation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr4MbTI-MUQ

(en) France, Alternative Libertaire AL #229 - Employment policy: The unemployed on to their rights (fr)

The employment policy of the Dutch government is an abysmal hypocrisy and management of 
employment center is clear evidence. To require the government to take responsibility, a 
march of unemployed cross France from June 10 to July 6. ---- Holland keeps repeating: the 
priority of government policy is employment. In a country in crisis, where large groups 
are relocating and dismiss with a vengeance just to maximize profits already totally 
indecent, one might expect a minimum of respect for workers thrown into the street. Yet it 
is quite the opposite. Employment center is the last step before the final destruction of 
what is originally a solidarity fund for workers - Assedic - jointly administered by 
unions and employers, and public service responsible for supporting the unemployed: the ANPE.

Following the refocusing of the CFDT union in the 1980s, Assedic falls into the hands of 
employers' organizations, and UNEDIC conventions, responsible for setting the rules for 
compensation, are increasingly unfavorable. It is also from this period that operates 
slowly reversing the status of unemployed. The employee-are victims of an economic system 
which they are fresh and they are in no way responsible.

Criminalization of worker
Victim, the unemployed will become responsible for their situation, summoned to explain to 
employment center, responsible for its part of the "back to work". Creating employment 
center to end Assedic under state supervision and management. We are witnessing the 
criminalization of an unemployed worker and parallel, as an economy measure, successive 
reforms on how to support the unemployed tend to put it away. The unemployed has now only 
two appointments required by law opened with the aim to limit spending and staffing. We 
can not keep track of the unemployed? Just do not get it! Of all the ways we continue to 
criminalize remotely by a reasonable job offer - which reduces your benefit in case of 
refusal - or through the terms of compensation. We are witnessing is the liquidation of 
the public employment service. Downsizing not to ensure records management compensation, 
clashes are growing in agencies that are always full. We will soon justify the manifest 
lack of employment center and decide to transfer management of unemployment to private 
insurance companies. Kessler and B?B?AR is already rubbing his hands.

To protest against this situation and put the government to its responsibilities, several 
associations of the unemployed - APEIS, AC, MNCP - DAL and two trade unions Pole 
Employment - Snu and the South - organize a march of unemployed cross France from June 10 
to arrive in Paris on July 6. One of their main claim, the drastic reduction of working 
time, the first step in an employment policy a little bit sensible!

Molinier Fran?ois (Paris AL East)

France, Alternative Libertaire AL #229 - Social amnesty Leave Louise Michel die in prison (fr)

Amnesty laws and presidential pardons are two French legal curiosities, a country where 
political power relations can defeat strict decisions (in) justice. Amnesty for the 
Communards, Victor Hugo took the lead in the first opinion campaign. Another cultural 
exception! ---- Amnesty activists and trade unionists (starting with the reintegration of 
thousands of delegates dismissed without ever challenged any of the laws of the Republic) 
was a theme in itself the election of 81, a claim strongly expressed by the CGT in 
particular. Mitterrand partially responded to the request after his election (the last 
amnesty to coup plotters of the OAS but that no one had asked him ...). ---- Neither 
during the 2012 campaign, or after the election of Holland this question was actually 
asked by the social movement.

Indicates that probably all at once his real weakness but also cut with a PS whose victory 
is no longer considered the victory of those who struggle. This is the PCF, playing on the 
key role his group elected to the Senate, where the PS is not a majority alone, will 
revive a draft amnesty modest. Negotiations with the PS group alters deeper draft. But it 
still leaves a bill that the PCF and the Left Front will qualify vis-?-vis social 
movements. A small token of friendship socialist senators also prepare their municipal ...

Amnesty light version
Are excluded from the amnesty made the most heavily condemned the "crimes against persons" 
and protest following fields: agriculture, school, undocumented, health, research 
(voluntary reapers), anti-nuke, anti pub NDDL ... Even in this light version the 
government was quickly learn that he would oppose any amnesty, building on the recent 
escalation of protests homophobic. The group of MPs PS aligns and the project falls in the 
debate in the National Assembly. Outside barely 500 activists made the trip to support a 
hollow and doomed project.

Scare activists
Actually full rise of capitalist violence, on the eve of new waves of layoffs and plant 
closures, on the eve of new social regression in companies under inter-national agreement 
(lower wages and increases working time "for two years"), on the eve of new evictions of 
slums, on the eve of new challenges to the rights of the unemployed and the right to 
retirement, PS / Green government wants to scare activists, workers whose anger eventually 
inevitably explode. With Valls who honed his image and whose presidential baton is the 
only chance the PS to avoid a return of the right to power. For solidarity with the 
convicted it will play us. Already the formation of local collective unit (Lille, Metz, 
Ales ...) give way. Holland first cop of capitalism? It would also murdered Rosa Luxemburg!

Jean-Yves (AL Seine-Saint-Denis)

(en) News.infoshop.org: In Defense of Leaderless Revolutions

Links at: http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20130727021124945 ---- Cihan Tugal 
(?The End of the ?Leaderless? Revolution? July 10, 2013) effectively picks apart the 
populist and premature claims of a successful revolution in Egypt. Yet he goes further to 
use the evident flaws in the leaderless revolutions that have been a hallmark of the early 
21st century to discredit the very concept of leaderless revolution. In doing so, he opens 
the way for an amnesiac backslide to the much more flawed authoritarian revolutions of the 
20th century, in the process committing some of the same errors that must be criticized in 
the ongoing revolts. ---- In order to build up a continuity of critique that benefits from 
awareness of all our past failures?a rich history indeed?we need to compare the failings 
of the leaderless revolutions with the much greater failings of the authoritarian 
revolutions of the past, rather than cover up those failings with the facile neologism of 
?leaderful? revolutions.

Ajamu Baraka, in ?Requiem for a Revolution That Never Was? (July 18, 2013), is correct in 
challenging the pretensions of the Egyptian revolt to being a revolution. He sets the bar 
necessarily higher, stating: ?A revolutionary process is a process by which structures of 
power are created by a broad mass of people that allow them to eventually transform every 
aspect of their society ? from the structure and role of the State and the organization of 
the economy to inter-personal relations ? all with a view to eliminating all forms of 
oppression.?

I would differ sharply with the idea that simply changing the structure and the role of 
the State is compatible with eliminating oppression, as every State in history has 
advanced the exclusive interests of the ruling class it unfailingly creates, necessarily 
blocking the full freedom of action and self-organization of its subjects. In fact no one 
has advanced a convincing argument about how a State could possibly do anything else, and 
the proponents of such apologia have most often been the ones to actively disprove the 
proposition of a benign State.

Nonetheless, we can take this as a starting point: a revolution seeks to profoundly 
transform social organization and eliminate oppression. If we acknowledge that populists 
were premature in declaring a revolutionary victory in Egypt, we should also accept that 
Tugal is premature in declaring a failure.

What revolution that ran its course was not preceded by insurrections that were crushed? 
In Russia there was the failed 1905 revolution. In China there was the Autumn Harvest 
Uprising, and in Spain the insurrections at Casas Viejas in 1933 and Asturias in 1934. The 
Cuban Revolution was preceded by the attack on the Moncada barracks. And the American 
Revolution owes much more to the thwarted Conspiracy of 1741 in New York than most 
historians are willing to acknowledge (given that the eventual leaders of that revolution 
were looking to avoid, rather than realize, the dreams of early insurgents).

Revolutions are not an event, but a process, and a major part of that process involves 
learning from our failures, developing more adequate theories and analysis, and building 
up the capacity to defend the spaces we seize and the germinal social relations we create.

In Egypt, the forces that obstructed this learning process were the revolt?s would-be 
leaders, populists hoping to mobilize the masses with empty slogans. These leaders were 
unwittingly complemented by direct democracy activists who thought it was enough for 
people to take to the streets and participate in assemblies. They were happy to have 
created a vessel, no matter how superficial the content that filled it, no matter how 
undeveloped their new structure?s capacity for self-defense.

In the plaza occupation movement in Spain, directly influenced by the Arab Spring, 
hundreds of thousands of people poured into the streets chanting, ?the revolution begins 
here.? Most of them were sincere, but they also held a media-corrupted view of what 
revolution actually means. The experience with a leaderless revolution forced many of them 
to question their assumptions and deepen their analysis.

Behind the fa?ade of popular unity that the many commentators helped to create, these 
movements contained important conflicts. In Spain as elsewhere, there were the 
authoritarians and the movement politicians who parroted horizontal, anti-party rhetoric 
so as not to scare away their potential constituency. And there were the activists who 
believed in an ideology of horizontality and direct democracy in and of themselves. Both 
of these groups coincided in their desire to hide and suppress the internal divisions in 
the movement. They spoke of unity and hoped that everyone would rally around lowest common 
denominator positions. But there were also the marginalized, who were not content with any 
movement that would sate itself with mere reform. Many of them kept coming back to the 
streets because of what they found there, a spontaneous, self-organizing collectivity that 
promised a future community based on everything that is lacking under capitalism. And 
among the marginalized were the radicals, who specifically and unceasingly criticized the 
false unity, the democratic populism, and the at best superficial analysis of capitalism.

The movement politicians tried their best to ignore these radicals. The media suggested 
they were outside provocateurs, even though they were there from the beginning. But an 
increasing number of people began to listen to them, and collectively the movement as a 
whole deepened its analysis and sharpened its practice. This is why the largely 
middle-class, populist ?indignados? of the spring of 2011 gave way to the anticapitalist, 
diverse, and numerically superior strikers and rioters of the general strike one year later.

In Egypt as well, anarchists and other radicals were in the heart of the recent uprising, 
opposing the Morsi government as well as a military government, and spreading critiques of 
the power structures that underpin both. For now, the military has prevailed, but this 
gives people in Egypt a chance to learn lessons and strengthen their practice. A 
population that has been subdued by military dictatorship for decades has little chance to 
develop the analysis and the tools of self-defense they need to overcome one of the most 
heavily funded militaries in the world in just two years, but in such a short time, they 
have come a very long way.

The leaderless revolution must overcome centuries of conditioning that teaches us that we 
need to be ruled. This is its central conflict. Setbacks in Egypt and elsewhere should 
underscore this conflict, not justify running away from the greatest struggle we will ever 
take up.

What becomes clear with experience is that it is not enough to take to the streets and 
protest, no matter how many figureheads we topple, because power runs deeper than that. It 
is not enough to implement democratic debate, because the right answers have already been 
precluded by the very way our lives have been structured.

Tugal is dead wrong when he writes about ?the fallacy that the people can take power 
without an agenda, an alternative platform, an ideology, and leaders.? That someone can 
still talk about taking power as a liberatory proposition without getting laughed off 
stage, in the face of so many historical examples that show what taking power actually 
means, shows how deep our collective amnesia runs.

It is no surprise, however, that some people keep sounding the call for unifying behind 
leaders and a platform in order to take power. In an authoritarian revolution, academics 
and other intellectual and cultural producers often move from their middling rung in the 
capitalist hierarchy to the top tier. It is in their class interest to advocate for 
authoritarian revolution. The rest of us just need to learn to tune them out.

The idea that we can address the economic alienation of capitalism without addressing the 
political alienation of the State is absurd. It is no coincidence that all the 
authoritarian revolutions that billed themselves as ?anticapitalist? proved to be nothing 
more than shortcuts back to capitalism. The greatest promise of the leaderless revolutions 
is their ability to create a synthesis between economic and political liberation, but only 
if they also reject the democratic populism that Tugal and many others have criticized. 
But an analysis critical of both capitalism and populism already exists in the heart of 
the Egyptian revolt, as it also did in the Spanish plaza occupation movement and even Occupy.

These leaderless revolts do not need to be rejected. We just need to cut through the veil 
of unity, hollow discourses like that of the ?99%? or ?people power?, acknowledge the 
conflicts that exist within these movements, and take sides. Not to advance the correct 
platform, the correct agenda, and the correct set of leaders, inevitably setting off a 
carnival of sectarianism, but in a spirit of pluralistic debate.

Bowing down to the need for leaders, ?an? (read, one) ideology, and a common platform 
would obstruct the most important line of growth for these revolutions, which is 
self-organization. A prerequisite for self-organization is that the outcomes cannot be 
predetermined as they are when we all have to toe a party line. Once most people know how 
to take the initiative in their own lives and put their plans into action, once the 
practice of self-organization intensifies to move beyond making abstract decisions, people 
will be able to create new social relations and collectively organize the material aspects 
of their lives?how to feed, clothe, house, heal, and generally provide for themselves. If 
this happens, leaders will be obsolete and we can begin to earnestly talk about revolution.

The worst problem with authoritarian revolutions is not that they produce ?a cult of the 
leader,? the only glitch Tugal finds to criticize, but that their existence requires them 
to obstruct the self-organization of the people by any means necessary, a dynamic that 
Voline documented in the Russian Revolution and that has proven to be the case in every 
authoritarian revolution since.

The revolts in Egypt, Turkey, Brazil, Spain, and elsewhere are an important start. But 
wherever we participate in leaderless movements we need to argue passionately against 
reformism, for a radical critique of capitalism, and for a committed rejection of leaders. 
Eschewing leadership provisionally, rejecting only the current leaders, will only lead to 
a takeover by populists, opportunists, or seemingly neutral structures like the military, 
as happened in Egypt. But if the rejection of leadership solidifies, Tamarod or any other 
group will not be able to rally people behind a leadership that appears to be neutral, or 
convince them to stuff their dreams into a ballot box.

If these revolutionary movements grow and successfully resist co-optation, they will come 
into greater conflict with the State. Leaderless insurrections in recent years in Egypt, 
Brazil, and Greece quickly overcame the ability of the police to contain them, raising the 
specter of a clash with the military. How can a leaderless revolt adapt to such a 
conflict? Fortunately we have historical precedents.

The most important historical lesson warns against the militarization of the conflict. 
Many revolutionary movements have had to overcome the military force of the State, but 
they ended up defeating themselves when they subordinated social questions to matters of 
military organization. In combat, large groups of people often need to arrive at unified 
decisions in the shortest time possible, meaning that assemblies don?t cut it. The forms 
of organization and leadership that develop in the sphere of martial conflict must 
therefore never take precedence over the social character of the ongoing revolution.

In recent times, the Zapatistas have taken great pains to avoid a militarization of the 
conflict or subordinate their social activities to the military leadership. The results of 
their efforts remain to be seen.

In the Spanish Civil War, anarchist and some socialist militias organized with elected and 
recallable officers, and these militias had no authority in socio-economic matters. The 
revolution was lost when it was subordinated to the military question (?win the war first, 
then make the revolution later?) and the militias were forced to join the regular armies.

In the Russian Revolution, the anarchist Makhno led a highly effective partisan detachment 
comprised entirely of peasant volunteers that wreaked havoc on the authoritarian White and 
Red Armies. For his part, Makhno refused leadership in the revolutionary assemblies that 
were established in the liberated territory. He stuck to military matters, and told 
workers or peasants looking for guidance to organize themselves.

Kim Jwa-Jin was a similar figure in the Chinese Civil War: leader of the Shinmin Commune?s 
army, he left all political decisions to the federation and the local assemblies, where an 
anti-authoritarian spirit were the order of the day.

Nanny led the maroons in Jamaica in the battle against slavery. And in their victorious 
wars against Spanish attempts at colonization, the Mapuche of South America chose tokis to 
lead them in battle. But Nanny and the tokis had no power on the community or household 
levels, beyond their own household and their own community, nor were they integrated into 
any power structure that governed those other social levels, as are military leaders in a 
compartmentalized state structure.

For most of us, the eventuality of military conflict is still a long way off. Even in 
Egypt, where a civil war is an imminent possibility, the movement still has so much work 
to do to get to a point where it could hope to survive such a conflict. Ultimately, we 
will cross that bridge when we get there. But it is good to know that we won?t be the 
first ones to carry the dream of an egalitarian revolution and a world without hierarchy 
or oppression.

We have no need to listen to those who sound the call to retreat, back to the hopelessly 
flawed model of authoritarian revolution that marred the 20th century. The leaderless 
revolution is an ongoing experiment, an endeavor that challenges us to abandon our 
authoritarian baggage, to convince those who are new to struggle that a simple reform is 
not enough, to spread an understanding of how power actually functions and to see the 
connection between every form of oppression.

The widespread mistrust of leaders is one of the few things we have gained from our long 
history of revolutionary failure. Let?s not give that up just because our struggles are 
not immediately successful. Rather, we need to turn that mistrust into a principled 
position. A hundred years ago, millions of people cried out, ?The liberation of the 
workers is a task for the workers themselves.? This is true of everyone who is exploited 
and oppressed, whether their oppression plays out on lines of class, race, gender, 
sexuality, or ethnicity. They will know better than anyone else how to liberate themselves.