Summer is here and the conditions of all those of us who depend on wages and pensions are getting rapidly worse. All thanks to mortgages, to the services of a welfare state that costs more and more, to death that awaits us in the workplace, to the shortage of dignified work that can assure our future.
The purchasing power of our wages is collapsing (-20% acording to OECD), pensions conceded by the government allow no dignity to old age, despite the odd arrogant handout.
Low wages provoke a general fall in consumption. We just cannot cope with inflation, with the price of oil and food or with our mortgage installments.
But what matters if the workers are poorer and poorer? The banks are always ready to help us: get yourself a loan. But so... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) On the 1926 Organizational Platform of the Libertarian Communists
Following the political and social eruption of 1968, dozens of young anarchist groups all over Italy (and in fact all over western Europe) were to re-discover the “Organizational Platform of the Anarchist Communists”, a document which had already sparked bitter debate among anarchists of the time and which continued to enthuse or arouse condemnation throughout the following decades.
In the early ‘70s, a collective of anarchist militants in the Italian region of Puglia (from the towns of Bari, Foggia, Barletta, Bisceglie, Molfetta and Altamura) accepted the challenge thrown down by the “Platform” and attempted to establish an anarchist organiz... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Following days of delirium in the media, with journalists prey to bouts of mystical ecstasy, heads of State (even some wanted by the police) genuflecting in front of the sacred corpse of JPII, and the long wait to see what decision the “holy spirit” would make, the election of this pope will finally bring things back to a state of normality.
The normality in this case being the same old unsurprising, calculating church which is everything but holy. We knew that JPII had appointed most of the cardinals in the conclave and that, despite his media-friendly image as “a nice guy”, he strongly supported the reactionary moral policies of Ratzinger.
Notwithstanding the crazy expectations of some (an African pope, a pope of... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The Right looking to re-conquer the lost fatherland
The army moves slowly into Bari
The San Marco Battalion cautiously takes up position outside the immigrant centers
Bari has been chosen as a test run for Minister La Russa’s new security operation, which went into effect on 4th August when 3,000 soldiers went into action across the country.
This is a de facto militarization of the territory, officially beginning in Bari at 7.00 am in the presence of Vice-minister Mantovano and continuing then to Rome, Turin, Milan, Naples, Bologna, Verona, Padua, Palermo, Gorizia and Calabria.
310 soldiers are stationed in Apulia (205 in Bari, the others in Foggia and Brindisi).
In the Apulian capital, 90 soldiers are already on duty, patrollin... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Franco Salomone, a member of the Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici, died following years of painful illness on 24 March 2008 in Savona. Franco was a comrade who made an enormous contribution to Anarchist Communism and to the class struggle.
From a very early age, he was involved in various anarchist organiztions in the Liguria region, choosing the class-struggle, communist line, and for decades dedicated himself to the double battle of work within the community, in the workers’ struggles, while at the same time working to rebuild anarchism which, from the 1950s had started to lose its Anarchist Communist principles, overcome by humanist anarchism, often of the kind that Luigi Fabbri had denounced in the previous decades as being of... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) 2003 will be remembered as the year when the right-wing government of the “House of Freedoms” coalition brought in three laws which, singly and together, were imbued with an underhand but devastating political aim — that of destroying the collective interests in the areas of universal rights and protections, to further liberalize the rules of the market, to allow individualism to dominate, to reduce labor, culture and the right to be accepted into the country into goods.
The labor law (Law 30), the Moratti Law on education, the Bossi-Fini Law on immigration, have all, over the past three years, produced nothing more than increased precarity and greater exploitation in labor, clandestinity and forms of slavery for immigran... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) They are called “civilian deaths”, victims of US collateral effects in Iraq, victims of Israeli bombardments in Palestine and Lebanon, defenseless human shields sacrificed by Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon, sacrificial lambs of al-Qaeda in Iraq, innocent workers picked out by Hamas kamikazes in Israel, victims of the daily Baathist repression in Syria or the daily repression by the imams in Iran.
What they are, in fact, are tens of thousands of men and women killed by the war and by the nationalism of various States, hundreds of thousands of refugees, fleeing their homes to find some sort of precarious safety, depending on humanitarian corridors which are under the control of... the military.
What they are, in fact, ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) In the most economically advanced countries today, while the State is becoming increasingly “lighter” in economic terms and reducing the supply of social services — in order also to adapt the cost of social services to the market standard consistent with production (as in the case of the low social spending of emerging economies) — it is becoming increasingly concerned with matters of ethics and bioethics, with a plethora of laws on these areas (abortion, IVF treatment, stem cell research, euthanasia, infibulation, etc.) and in personal areas, such as domestic partnerships, divorce, separation, etc.).
In this difficult period for capitalist accumulation, characterized by a mature capitalist structure and by the entr... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Eleven years have passed since the day when, during a revolt by some migrants detained at the “Serraino Vulpitta” detention camp, mattresses were set alight in protest and the guards, unappreciative of the danger of the situation, failed to open the cages. The blaze caused the deaths of 6 people.
Today the situation has not changed at all. Governments have changed, but the racist policies go on and only get worse, fueling the war between the poor that suits the bosses and our rulers. And so we see the birth of a new, bigger and more isolated structure, a new Center for Identification and Expulsion (CIE) in Milo, on the outskirts of Trapani.
People continue to die and be imprisoned, guilty only of being “clandestine&rdquo... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) I — Preamble
“Anarchism is not some beautiful dream, nor some abstract notion of philosophy: it is a social movement of the working masses. For that reason alone it must gather its forces into one umbrella organization, forever acting as the reality and the strategy of the social struggle that the classes require of it!” (Dielo Truda, 1926)
The Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici (FdCA), in setting itself forth as revolutionary conscience and historical memory within the mass conscience of the exploited classes, groups class-struggle anarchist communist militants who share its political positions.
The necessity for it lies in the present-day class struggle itself. As a part of the class, the FdCA develops the c... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Will our heroes, the great statesmen gathered at the G8 meeting, succeed in managing to conciliate profit and environmental protection?
Since the days of the first industrial revolution, there have been thousands of ecological disasters caused due to the thirst for profit.
True, in recent years, a greater sensitivity in citizens of the Western countries to environmental matters has forced industries to pay more attention to ecological matters. Indeed, by means of the perverse cycle of pollute/de-pollute, Capital has managed to find new ways to create profit, at everyone’s cost. New ecological businesses are started in order to clean up particular territories which other businesses have polluted, and the percentage represented by thi... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) 2007 ended with a definite worsening of the international proletariat’s conditions and the Italian workers are no exception to this. The prospects for the future are also gloomy.
The creeping financial crisis sparked off by the mortgages market together with the rise in the costs of raw materials are directly affecting the living conditions of the weakest social classes, who now find themselves without safeguards and protection as a result of poor social and economic policies for wage support and purchasing power.
Italy’s 2008 Budget, in fact, gives priority to sorting out the country’s public finances, reducing the tax load on businesses, and increasing military and security spending.
The (exclusively European) obsessi... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Seventy years from that date.
Seventy years that have not been able to wipe out the memory of or the intensity of feelings when one thinks about the victory of the Spanish workers in 1936 in most parts of the country over the military and fascist coup and the start of the biggest mass social revolution in western Europe.
Seventy years that must force us to reflect on (and not only commemorate) the political significance of the events that were sparked off by the outcome of 19th July and the Spanish Revolution. And two views come into play: one positive, the other much less so.
What was extraordinary was the enormous collective struggle (influenced to no small degree by the propaganda and example of several generations of anarchist commun... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The Tibetan people’s revolt against the Chinese occupation has once more brought to the attention of the world the state of subjection in which the territory has been held for decades by the military presence of China’s “People’s Liberation Army”. Tibet is geographically strategic. After the discovery and consequent ransacking of raw materials that are essential to China’s economy (uranium in prime position), reducing the country to little more than a nuclear dump, Tibet has also had to put up with the Beijing regime’s demographic policies of Sinization, part of a general plan for the entire Far East that China has been pushing since the 1960s, with no qualms about the use of fiercely repressive mea... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) To all those comrades who have chosen the difficult path of union work in order to play an active part in the class war, those who have chosen the labor organizations as the main way to give voice and strength to the collective, immediate and historical interests of the exploited, those who organize and carry out union activities using the method of direct democracy, according to the class interests.
The dimensions of a defeat...
If we analyze the events or processes which have begun but which have not yet ended, the economic cycle, what do we find again and again? The reduction of the numbers of productive units; the shifting of certain sectors to countries with a cheaper workforce and no restrictions on environmental pollution; change... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The international situation
The capitalist system’s structural crisis has dealt a severe blow to the economies of many countries.
A structural – not cyclical – economic crisis which in effect demonstrates the net failure of the liberal system.
In Europe, where liberal parties continue to be successful, the various parties and governments define it as a cyclical crisis and often declare it to be over, merely because they cannot declare the very system they base themselves on to be a failure.
European governments of all political colors are taking anti-popular economic measures; they are supporting banks and businesses using the crisis as an alibi, and the bill for this “support” is being paid for by public... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) A troublesome referendum for the government. A tricky referendum for those private interests waiting to get their hands on common property. A damaging referendum for energy bosses and for the military that protects nuclear sites.
A referendum where a YES vote can cancel legislation introduced solely for the benefit of these gentlemen.
A class-based referendum, where the right to live in a de-nuclearized land and the right to enjoy collective access to publicly-owned water must be defended and reaffirmed against those who have produced laws which — were they to be confirmed by the only thing that can stop them now, that is if a quorum in the referendum is not reached — would produce enormous damage to the environment, health an... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) 1. The Vietnam War and the crisis of Fordism
The international economic context remained stable for over twenty years on the basis of what came out of the Bretton Woods conference in 1945: one dominant currency — the dollar, one leading country — the United States of America. The agreement, which was opposed by Lord Keynes, sanctioned the strength ratios that existed within the capitalist world at the end of the Second World War: not a collective government of the area dominated by private capital (as the British had wanted) but a vertical model in which the USA dominated the organs of international control e dictated the rules; in return they had to guarantee that their currency, imposed as the point of reference for trade, ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The concessions made to the United States government by Italian prime minister Prodi and foreign secretary D’Alema for a new military base in Vicenza (at the Dal Molin airport) is a matter of the utmost seriousness which goes to show this government’s militaristic, warmongering tendency, and provides yet another signal of continuity with the disastrous foreign policy of previous governments.
Hot on the heels of a “blood, sweat and tears” Budget for Italian workers, the increase in military spending and the soon-to-be-confirmed continuation of financing for military missions abroad (in Afghanistan and Lebanon) with the full support of the center-right opposition coalition, are the most tangible signs of the continuit... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) For the last year there has been a new type of struggle in Palestine: a nonviolent struggle against the Wall which the Israeli State is building in the country. The Wall, officially known as a “separation fence” is in fact one of the greatest threats the Palestinian population has known over the last century. It is a “peaceful” operation, in the sense that unlike so often in the past, this is not an all-out military war against the people, but it is nonetheless a war against them and against their lands. It is a war for the control of territory, for the control of water, but above all it has one final aim, which is to make life so appalling for the Palestinian people that they will be left with one choice: move out. ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) While Greece was preparing for its general strike on Wednesday 10 December against the Karamanlis government and against the economic crisis, and with the grassroots mobilization in schools and universities growing for some time against proposed reforms, Alexandros Grigoropolous, only 16 years old, was the unlucky choice to become victim and scapegoat of the police apparatus and was killed in cold blood by the State’s forces of repression.
The economic crisis sparked off by international capitalism against the exploited of the whole world, which is being managed with measures imposing general impoverishment by the States, is damaging the fragile equilibriums and the precarious alliances of power between groups of power and both right... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) A little history never hurt anyone! The beast that is the modern State was born over two centuries ago and was closely connected with the emergence of the bourgeoisie as the new dominant class. It is not by chance that a large part of the typical functions of the modern State owe their origins to revolutionary France in 1789. It is a good idea to examine the reasons behind this profound transformation of the power structures in society, which social relationships ceased to exist in order to make way for others, what effects all this had on class relations and, above all, how the domination of the emerging bourgeoisie came about...
Introduction
One of the basics of Anarchism throughout its history is without doubt its anti-Statism.
We d... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Slavery did not come about because of the “inferiority” of blacks or the perversity of whites. It flourished as long as there was profit in it. Racial prejudice was created and allowed to grow in order to provide a justification at all times for the exploitation of a colored workforce.
Daniel Guérin
What happened in Rosarno has without doubt come as a slap in the face to all those who believe in and fight for a different world where sides based on race, language and religion face up to each other are just an ugly memory, and to all those who see the unity of all workers, wherever they are from, as the only force able to build a better society of free equals.
The violence of the State and of these new Calabrian K... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) A wind of revolt is blowing. Blowing from France over the Alps.
There is much that divides the revolt in the suburbs of Paris from the revolt in the Val di Susa in northern Italy.
On the one hand young, desperate people with no future, armed with their anger and without a clear identity. French, according to their birth certificates, but not recognized as such by either the cops who, every day, stop them to see their papers, or by personnel managers who won’t take them on because they look too Arab to be trusted even as a porter.
On the other hand, families, public officials and militants desperately trying to stop their valley being invaded by the bulldozers and the high-speed railway. Who realize that, despite all the talk of par... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The situation in Italy’s universities is somewhat untypical compared with other areas of the public sector, all of whom are in serious difficulty as a result of the crisis and this government’s actions. For years now, universities have been seeing their resources and personnel drain away, a decade of reform has weakened the university system in favor of the logic of neo-liberalism and the casualization of researchers and lecturers, to the detriment of education and research.
But there has been no united response over the years from lecturers, researchers, casual workers, administration personnel and students. Now, however, with the new law on universities about to be passed — a law which definitively puts the seal on the ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)