ZabalazaA Journal of Southern African Revolutionary No. 10 April 2009 From Each according to ability, To each according to need! They don’t share the profits-

We won’t share the pain! In this issue... Southern Africa «ZACF Editorial...... Page 3 «Unite Against the Minority, Then Unite Against the Majority?...... Page 3 « The Jacob Zuma Cargo Cult and the “Implosion” of Alliance Politics...... Page 4 «A Bitter Taste to the Sugarcane...... Page 10 «Four Tools for Community Control – Part I: “Mutual Aid”...... Page 11 «Zimbabwe’s Party-Political Stitch-Up - How the Zanu-PF/MDC Deal Ignored Civil Society...... Page 14 Africa «The Anarchist Movement in North Africa: 1877 - 1951...... Page 18 «Socialists and Gaullists Haunted by the Ghosts of Genocide...... Page 22 international

«Jalan Journal: A New Asian Anarchist Voice is Born...... Page 22 «30th Congress of the National Confederation of Labour - ...... Page 23 «Hamas, the Left and Liberation in Palestine...... Page 23 «Interview with Ilan Shalif from Anarchists Against the Wall - Israel/Palestine...... Page 24 «A Hot Winter in ...... Page 25 «Something Smells Different in Cuba...... Page 29 «Imperialism, China and Russia...... Page 32 «Against Political Terror in Russia, We Mobilise!...... Page 35 «Change We Need: An Anarchist Perspective on the 2008 US Election...... Page 36 theory «Tangled Threads of : Reflections on Anarchist Communists: A Question of Class...... Page 38

organisational platform of the general union of anarchists (draft)

Português: www.nestormakhno.info/portuguese/platform2/org_plat.htm Français: www.nestormakhno.info/french/platform/org_plat.htm Arabic: www.anarkismo.net/article/9237 Castellano/ Español: www.nestormakhno.info/spanish/platform/org_plat.htm Deutsch: www.zabalaza.net/theory/txt_plattform_de.htm English: www.zabalaza.net/theory/txt_platform.htm or download the pamphlet from: www.zabalaza.net/pdfs/varpams/platform_2006_en.pdf

southern african anarchism online

Links to local groups, educational material, email discussion lists, PDF leaflets for you to distribute etc. etc.

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editorial zabalaza anarchist communist front, johannesburg, march 2009

When we published Zabalaza 9 in Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) In the context of the US’s continued September 2008, in the wake of the leader Morgan Tsvangirai becoming Prime ‘war on terror’ Democrat Senator Barack xenophobic pogroms which swept across Minister in a government of national unity, Obama was elected the first-ever black US South Africa in May of that year, leaving prompting South African politicians to president on the ticket of much-needed over 60 people dead and hundreds of say that the crisis in Zimbabwe was now ‘change’. Despite his failure to commit to thousands displaced, we took a distinct over - despite the ruin of the economy, pulling troops out of Iraq, or his support regional focus in giving the issue the complete lack of infrastructure and basic for the Israeli Zionist regime he has theme of opposing xenophobia and services and Mugabe’s continued control been lauded by so-called progressives nationalism in South Africa. Since then the of the police and armed forces and the and some leftists across the world as a ZACF has been involved with the Coalition continued militarisation of society - so God-send, here to save the world. His Against Xenophobia in organising a 24- that Zimbabwean political and economic first acts were to bail out the banks and hour picket outside the Lindela detention refugees living in South Africa “must now corporations, leaving the workers and center in Roodepoort, and has worked to go home”. poor to pay. raise awareness against xenophobia and In Swaziland, as the year drew to a All of this happened in the context of nationalism through distribution of our close, the 2008 deadline for liberation the worst global economic downturn since journal and by other means. from the Tinkhundla regime of King the 1930s, with hundreds of banks and Since September last year, however, Mswati III, declared by the People’s companies being declared bankrupt and the global political and economic United Democratic Movement (Pudemo), hundreds of thousands of jobs lost. With landscape has changed dramatically, and was missed with little sign of liberation. bailouts by states and the nationalisation we have therefore deliberately broadened In the Middle East, the Israeli Zionist of banks and large corporations, the the focus of Zabalaza 10 to have a more regime attacked the Gaza Strip, killing economic crisis has been called the end international perspective. hundreds of children and other civilians of the neo-liberal era - only going to Locally, former President Thabo Mbeki while at the same time failing to achieve show, probably to the distress of some was unceremoneously removed from their alleged objective of rooting out on the left, that nationalisation does not office by the ruling party, and replaced Hamas and destroying its supply- equal . by President Kgalema Motlanthe; and the lines, leading to massive pro-Palestine In this context the popular uprising in ANC formally split, spawning yet another mobilisations across the world. Greece, sparked by the police murder of bourgeois-nationalist party, the Congress Likewise there was war in Georgia and a 15-year-old boy, with massive popular of the People (Cope), intent on ruling - or South Ossetia, and the continuation of demonstrations and occupations, has is it ruining? - our lives. the US’s war against the people of Iraq, shown the way forward for the popular Regionally, months of stop-start as well as a shifting of forces and focus classes to respond to the crisis of negotiations around a power-sharing deal towards Afghanistan. capitalism. in Zimbabwe finally led to the opposition Unite Against the Minority, then Unite Against the Majority? (Zambia) by malele D. phirii, Lusaka, 2 march 2009 Phiri is a libertarian socialist comrade who I first met in Zambia in 1998 as a Socialist Caucus member when I gave a talk at the university there as a Workers’ delegate invited by our late comrade Wilstar Choongo, founder of the now- defunct Anarchist & Workers’ Solidarity Movement of Zambia. Here is a brief, yet telling letter from her to Zabalaza reflecting on the challenges facing serious socialist activists in her region. – Michael Schmidt It would seem that the lead role of [Kwame] Nkrumah has held us in a vise to continue to demand more and more leftists in African politics in the south/ grip for the best of 13 years. accountability. central part of the continent has taken What was left of the Angolan As we strengthen the accountability of a beating. The paradox of Zanu-PF as and Mozambican struggle, has been our own structures, we build our capacity being one of the loudest ‘socialist’ parties overwhelmed by the deep divide to demand the same from the men and in the region does not between rich and poor. Nowhere do the women who call us their leaders. We help much. raw remains of our colonial past moderate our strategies better when we The existence raise their head in an uglier are able to see each other as individuals. and persistence of manner than in the daily life- This is the beauty of the anarchist the International threatening circumstance of approach. No masks, we see each other S o c i a l i s t the people of the DRC. as who we are. Organisation of And if no other country After years of worrying that our Zimbabwe as a clear can outrage us, surely socialist grouping was too small, I am now alternative voice to the misery there should enlivened by the idea that the movement state socialism and move us to action? should move on basic structures of as few the surviving civil society And this is the as 15 people. Because of the limitations organisations in that country will question? If the rhetoric of communication and transport in our not get much relief from the new of the left in this region region, we are better off developing ‘power-sharing’ arrangement. is a monopoly of an ourselves this way. Where we operate Zambian civil society elite, used by the same together, where we are unable we organisations sometimes seem to people to get into power continue to spread the socialist message be Zimbabwe’s dialectical opposite. and then used against of the fundamental equality and dignity Larger unions and non-governmental the rallied mass of the population, of all human beings. organisations do their dealings in the obviously we do not want to The struggle is OUR struggle. We need well-carpeted offices. There always seem establish structures in any way similar to take ownership. to be a compromise that can be made, to these mass political parties. What ‘constitutionalism’ as described by we do need to do in our structures is Zabalaza page 4 southern africa , , The Jacob Zuma Cargo Cult and the ““ Implosion ” of Alliance Politics (south africa) by michael schmidt (zacf) Much printers’ ink has been shed by pundits and politicians in attempting to explain, excuse, laud or condemn the rise of Jacob Zuma to the ANC Presidency from where it is just a short hop, skip and jump to the South African Presidency following the 2009 General Election. The rest of us, the people, are reduced to either disgruntled witnesses or ecstatic cheerleaders of “JZ” shifting the weight of his gut from foot to foot in his monotonous mshini-wam song. He knows it doesn’t have to be a particularly energetic dance, for it is pretty much guaranteed that the ill-gotten gains he allegedly sought so assiduously for so long will soon be his when he holds the keys to the Treasury. Just how did arguably the world’s most famous liberation movement implode so rapidly into a venal kleptocracy, a cabal of back-slapping thugs? Did it in fact implode? Did it descend from great ethical heights or was the rot there all along? The Lies of Democracy-for- parliamentary parties, whether they are 18 and over were eligible. So with one the-Few “communist,” “revolutionary socialist” in four eligible voters having failed to or There are numerous outright lies “African nationalist,” faith-based, or having chosen not to register, and with concerning the state of democracy in outright neo-liberal, are all staunchly pro- almost one in three registered voters South Africa that are slavishly repeated capitalist, for how else would they feed having failed to, or having chosen not to by our centrist-neoliberal mainstream off the labour of the majority like ticks on vote, in real terms, the ANC government press and all our conventional political what would otherwise be a healthy dog? garnered only 10-million votes – a shoddy 37,3% of eligible voters. Party parties – especially those that consider ANC Minority Rule in South themselves part of a “National Democratic spin-doctors performed damage-control Revolution” tradition. The most obvious, Africa rain dances, as did scores of policy so close-up that most people can’t see it, But by far the biggest lie is that South wonks and media pundits, most of whom is the lie that some 400 MPs can in any Africa has a majority-rule government. In spewed hot air, laced with cognac fumes, way, shape or form actually represent September 2005, I examined this widely- about the “laziness” of the country’s the interests of almost 50-million people repeated lie in a newspaper column which “depoliticised” youth. The more honest living within our borders. In the anarchist is worth repeating in its entirety: of them were only prepared to admit form of democracy, , On a couple of occasions over the that South African voting patterns were only you can represent your own past two weeks, I’ve sat at night around settling downwards in the direction of the interests (or only mutually-agreed groups a candle with a group of black “squatter “normal” (read: abysmal) poll levels that can represent their own) – and have the camp’’ youth and listened to talk of the mark most “mature democracies”. The responsibility to do so. In any case, the forthcoming local government elections. rest simply pretended the crisis did not inexorable shifts from parliamentarism The less-than-weatherproof, concrete- exist – and made it seem that the ANC towards a president-dominated system floored shack we met in was far away from had achieved its desired “two- thirds- advanced under Thabo Mbeki (and the Matrix-style world of groovy youth of majority” mandate. ironically, shortly to be taken advantage the “Power of X” advert promoting voter But the youths I was listening to, of by Jacob Zuma) has meant that registration on television. The government unlike the gravity-defiant youth in the Parliament is merely “a rubber stamp” for pays so much to persuade people to “Power of X”, have their poorly shod feet the will of the ANC executive. Those were register for local and national elections firmly planted in the mud. They are active the words of Independent Democrats because South Africa is experiencing a and political – and they were debating leader Patricia de Lille. Even veteran ANC very real – but officially denied – crisis of whether there was any real power in “X”. MP Prof Ben Turok, who was involved confidence in paper politics. No I’m not They subscribed to the gamut of political in the drafting of the Freedom Charter talking about Armsgate, Travelgate and allegiances, from anarchist-communist in 1955 and who has been intimately Oilgate – or even about floor-crossing. to ANC. But common cause among the involved in ANC policy-making at least Those national issues were far from youth clustered by candlelight was that since the Morogoro Conference in exile in the minds of the group of four young the current ANC ward councillor was 1969 (when he castigated his cadres for women and twelve young men squeezed a useless, ne’er-do-well bastard who their drunkenness, and into the gloomy shack. What concerned was never available to speak to the maladministration), admitted on a recent them was the lack of development in community or to receive its petitions SAfm radio interview with Tim Modise their settlement over the past decade. for development. Also common cause that Parliament was a powerless talk- Let me begin with what will prove the was that the lack of development is shop: “We [MPs] just talk; the executive most controversial assertion: that the dire: there are no proper houses, no does.” This weakened parliamentary ANC is in power thanks to a minority of electricity, sewerage, schools, in fact system has been further bastardised by eligible voters – not the more than 2/3 no facilities other than a muddy soccer the opportunism of floor-crossing (where majority it so brashly claims. In 2004, field and a library built by the community MPs are able to continue to eat off the fat the Independent Electoral Commission [with anarchist assistance]. Beyond that, of the land while betraying their voters), (IEC) claimed a 76,7% turnout in the there were two blocks of opinion among by many MPs’ complicity in outright national elections. But our comrades of these earnest youth: one that favoured defrauding of the public (the Travelgate the Landless People’s Movement (LPM) the election of their own councillor, under scandal), by the fact that parties with – which had conducted a “No Land, No community control, taking orders directly seats in Parliament get SABC election Vote” campaign – replied with a stinging from mass meetings of residents; and coverage – and taxpayer’s funding for critique that broke this figure down, one that favoured surrendering the hard- their campaigns – depending on their noting that the IEC’s own figures claimed won right to vote in favour of a militant current seats in the House, and by the 20,7-million people registered to vote, protest boycott. Last Friday, on the maintenance of the paper-thin farce that yet only 14,9-million actually did so. This eve of voter registration, a democratic MPs have “constituency offices” in which showed, the LPM argued, that only 72% community mass meeting decided in they work for the good of all people in of registered voters actually voted – and favour of a boycott. This was despite their constituencies (whereas in fact MPs that almost 28% of registered voters the pleas of the faction that argued for have no constituencies and these offices chose not to embrace the “Power of X”. electing a “controllable squatter camp are party-political offices where they Even ignoring a 2% per annum population councillor” – and despite the late arrival serve party interests exclusively). And on growth, the latest census showed at of the ANC councillor, flanked by police top of all this, it is blindingly clear that our least 27,4-million South Africans aged thugs, who ordered two youths arrested Zabalaza page 5 southern africa for “intimidation” (apparently they are these civil organs structured? Do they of these vertical systems: firstly, the walked away from him while he was not replicate the oppressive hierarchy entire membership of an organisation is trying to speak to them). Come voter of the capitalist system with a minority its policy-making body (ie: there is no registration on Saturday the turnout was of committee members determining “central committee” that takes decisions deliberately, defiantly, exceptionally low. the policy, direction and health of the over the members’ heads); secondly, Beyond the flicker of the wafer-thin world majority of the membership? Again those who take decisions are those who of television, thousands of residents of this shabby, but proud squatter camp, we see the dead hand of “democratic carry them out (ie: there is no class/ young and old, played their game of centralism,” and again, we must answer labour division in the organisation where noughts and crosses. The game was won “No, this is not democracy!” And what a lazy overseer group gives orders to by , by the “Power of about the state itself, that elephant in those who do the actual work); thirdly, O”. the room, the one question most people members given tasks by the membership And from what I’m told by an anarchist avoid addressing? There is this naïve are narrowly mandated (ie: they cannot resident of that particular squatter-camp socialist assumption that the state take broader decisions that affect the (Elias Motsoaledi, next to the Chris Hani in the hands of a “progressive” elite, majority without being authorised to do Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto), on the especially one that calls itself socialist, so) and immediately recallable if they fail eve of the 2009 General Election, nothing and revolutionary, is transformed by that in their duties (ie: they lose their positions much has changed – either in their lack “socialist” ruling party into a democratic immediately if they betray the majority); of access to development or in the organ that functions for the good of the lastly, our organisations are federated arrogant attitude of their ANC councillor. downtrodden at large. Well, on the one horizontally with sister organisations The truth that the ANC is a minority-rule hand, the state is a capitalist employer who work alongside each other in mutual government dramatically undercuts the of tens of thousands of public servants respect in our struggles (ie: there is argument that Cope’s challenge may who are poorly paid and shabbily treated; no pecking-order of organisations in cost it its prized 2/3 majority – because and on the other hand, the state is the partnership as with the ANC telling the it never had one! But all parliamentary armed wing, the repressive force, of the much larger Cosatu what to do). parties go along with this fiction because bosses who run the national corporation it supports their pork-barrel politics which nick-named “South Africa Incorporated,” The Truncheon is entirely dismissive of the wishes of an artificial entity like all states, based There is the old US imperialism that the majority of South African residents. in this case on colonial borders, that is we are accustomed to, and which, as This is the logical conclusion of the the capitalist business of the political outlined in Zabalaza #8 is expanding “democratic centralism” practiced by the elite. But the state is more than that: it into Africa. But what about South Africa’s ANC and all other mainstream parties: the is an unelected bureaucracy that, as an role as an alleged upholder of democracy disembowelling of the very meaning of organisation that outlasts all political on our troubled continent? Surely, as democracy, but reserving it to ever tinier parties, has its own interests that are the continent’s supposed leading light elite circles of the wealthy where we the sometimes different from those of its regarding the advancement of at the very people not only have no say, but are daily political bosses (in this case the ANC), least the adult franchise across Africa, we mocked over snifters of cognac for our but always radically different from the are in good standing? Well, I don’t believe gullibility in believing that the political interests of the people. Also, Aubrey so. For instance, Midrand between Joburg aristocracy rules in our best interests. Matshiqi of the Centre for Policy Studies and Pretoria is the host to that farce called warns of the rise in SA of “the deep state: the Pan-African Parliament (PAP), which The Elephant in the Room: the confluence of political, criminal, must surely be seen by all true democratic the Unelected State intelligence and business interests”. revolutionaries as a poor-woman’s meal As communists we need to ask This is the truth that communists who of pap without meat! How is it possible ourselves the pressing question: what have succumbed to Stalinism and other to have a continental “parliament” when exactly is “democratic” about our forms of state socialism fail to recognise: many of the countries represented there society? If our Parliament for whom that even under “communist” regimes are oligarchies, personal multi-decade we are begged to vote by its thieving as in the USSR, China and elsewhere, dictatorships and military juntas? This beneficiaries is toothless and ruled by a the state becomes the capitalist landlord is a monstrous lie that we must not one-party executive – according to both and acts harshly towards its “tenants,” suffer to live another second! The lie’s De Lille and Turock – then where else the hungry work-force that keeps its most noxious recent offspring is this in our society is true democracy to be parasitic power alive. And if we look false settlement achieved in Zimbabwe found? Is our working life democratic? within specific entities of the state, is the (see page 14) – only after South Africa Can one really openly challenge the SANDF internally democratic? Hardly! tolerated murder, rape, expulsion, owner of a business to debate about Is the National Intelligence Agency a torture, arson, starvation and robbery of their workers’ starvation wages? Look at democracy? Obviously not! Are our the public purse on an astronomical scale the hierarchy of bosses, from foreman health services, the police, our schools, for the better part of a decade. In short, up to deputy-director, a group of lazy, our refuse-removal systems or anything the MDC and Zanu-PF, having ignored the shady operators telling those who really else that the state does with the money cries of dying Zimbabwean civil society, know how to do the job how best to do they steal from every loaf of bread bought finally shook hands over the corpses. We, it! Is this army-style rule any different by a poor woman feeding her family, in the ZACF, find nothing to celebrate here: in the mainstream media where owners any way democratic? If the entire state instead we grieve for the destruction of tell editors and editors tell journalists is not a democracy, and our civil society, a people by the cynical parasitic elites what to do? OK, so the corporate world fails to operate along democratic lines, on both sides of the border. Then we is obviously not democratic, but is our and the parliamentary system is not only look at South Africa’s reputation abroad civil society life democratic? Sure, we unrepresentative but powerless, then for business skulduggery: whether it don’t have to register all social organs where does democracy reside in South is Shoprite apparently dumping its from chess clubs, to churches and Africa? The answer is: only in our hearts rotten produce on the shelves of its mosques, from soccer clubs to stokvels and in the way in which we treat each Mozambican stores, or Tokyo Sexwale/ and debating societies with the police as other with respect. The anarchist model Sun International’s failed bid to bulldoze a in many other African countries, but how of direct democracy is the total opposite woman’s modest hotel on Ilha do Luanda Zabalaza page 6 southern africa in cahoots with a friend in the Angolan like [witchdoctor-like] probing of the when Nkobi pretty much existed only on Cabinet to erect a multi-storey monolith, lower intestines of Jacob Zuma, it was paper, but four years before French arms our reputation out there sucks. And let’s Mandela who scrapped the quasi-socialist dealers dangled the bait of an alleged not forget the drunken, rapine behaviour Reconstruction and Development half-million/year bribe in front of Zuma. Of of our troops abroad. We currently have Programme and substituted it for the course the National Prosecuting Authority more than two battalions of our soldiers outright neoliberal Gear, Mandela who screwed up by not trying Zuma alongside out of SA on “peace-keeping” missions: in 1997 granted neo-fascist, mass- Shaik, but it appears clear that Zuma’s one in the DRC as part of the UN murdering dictator Mohamed Suharto mens rea, his “evil intent,” to engage in contingent, one in Burundi as part of the the Star of Good Hope for his $60-million corrupt dealings well before he could even African Union force, sizeable contingents donation to the ANC – and it is Zuma who be induced by actual cash was proven in Darfur (AU long ago. He has lurked in the shallow again) and on the waters of our body politic for years like Eritrea/Ethiopia a fat trout with his greedy mouth open… border, as well as well before any baited hook was dangled military advisors in front of him by the French. and observers from Namibia The “National Democratic to West Africa. Revolution” Sadly, despite So how exactly did “Jay-Zee” (note the h o n o u r a b l e Americanised hip-hop pronunciation) rise members in to the top? Well, this is laid out in better, their ranks, their if mind-numbing detail, by various books reputation has on the topic (such as Jeremy Gordin’s been sullied by Zuma), all hoping to cash in on our our troops raping sickly fascination with the creature of the under-aged girls, moment. But one has to look deeper, to and a wide variety find the origins of such a golem, deeper of ill-disciplined to the very roots of the ANC’s bogus behaviour such as “National Democratic Revolution”. The theft, corruption roots of the rot lie in the very concept of and public Mandela rewards his fascist financier, Suharto the NDR – the doctrine of the ascendancy drunkenness. So of black nationalist aspirations and the despite our best intentions, we come has sworn to business backers abroad capitalist economy that is wielded by ANC across looking like the region’s rapist that it will be business as usual during his ideologues as a tub-thumper wields the and scavenger, and worse, its corrupt, reign. In other words, the corruption and Bible. But what is the true nature of this swaggering policeman wielding the anti-working-class violence of the current “Revolution,” and how transformative is it truncheon against the poor in favour of government stems directly from Mandela, truly for the poorest of the poor? The NDR parasitic US, EU and SA interests. that smarmy glad-hander of parasitic has its roots in the opportunistic 1928 interests, and there is a direct line of saddling-up of the black nationalist petit- The Baited Hook virulent, albeit disguised, anti-worker self- bourgeoisie by the then-tiny and pretty So what was the baited hook that interest that runs from Mandela through much all-white Communist Party with the induced the leaders of our “National Mbeki to Zuma. I have argued in a piece “Native Republic” doctrine, a fatal idea Democratic Revolution” to so fall from shortly to be published in the Chilean that has firstly allowed an anti-working the manufactured heights of grace of the journal Hombre y Sociedad entitled PW class ideology to corrupt liberation Mandela myth to the sleazy swamp in & Pinochet: The Dictatorial Roots of politics, and which secondly has raised which they now wallow? There is a foolish Democracy in South Africa and Chile, that up the inheritors of this betrayal to fat-cat argument on the left, that replicates the the Mandela regime (and those who got positions of power over the poor. There delusional Trotskyist argument around the fat off it including Mbeki and Zuma) was is a general fallacy that the anarchist succession in Russia, that Lenin was cool the logical culmination and realisation of movement, because of its implacable and right-on, but he was supplanted by the strategy of the old PW Botha regime: opposition to the reactionary nature of treachery by Stalin who was an outright that so long as real, structural apartheid statist nationalism, had nothing to say bastard – and only Trotsky stood up to him kept the poor apart from the precious over its 150 year history about national as a critic of the decay of “real, existing classes, the Nats had achieved in Mandela liberation struggles against colonialism socialism”. The SA lefty argument goes and the ANC what they were incapable and imperialism. This is fundamentally similarly: Mandela was cool and right- of achieving themselves because of the untrue. on, but he was supplanted by Mbeki who lack of a popular mandate. But in more In fact, as will be demonstrated in was an outright bastard – and only Zuma specific terms, what is it that induced the great detail shortly in the book Anarchism stood up to him as a critic of the decay of alleged corruption of Zuma over whose and in the Colonial and “real, existing democracy”. Unfortunately head a corruption and racketeering trial Postcolonial World, 1880-1940: class for these partisans of wishful thinking, it still appears to hang? It is sufficient, to politics, imperialism and the national was Lenin, not Stalin, who reintroduced my mind, to note that during the trial of question in three continents. Co-edited capitalism via the New Economic Policy, Zuma’s erstwhile financial advisor Schabir by ZACF associate Dr Lucien van der Lenin who had established the Cheka Shaik in October 2004, it was revealed Walt, this groundbreaking book examines and had crushed the revolutionaries that while he was still KwaZulu-Natal critically how anarchists engaged with at Kronstadt – and it was Trotsky who MEC for Finance, Zuma had accompanied the national question in the Andes, ordered Kronstadt and the Ukrainian Shaik to Indonesia where he blatantly Caribbean, Eastern Europe, Africa, and Revolution destroyed. Likewise, sadly lied to Indonesian Cabinet ministers that the Far East. What the book’s collection for the SACP and Cosatu who somehow Shaiks’ Nkobi Holdings was a major SA of new academic studies makes clear conjure up a “socialist” in their balyoyi- defence contractor. Not only was this is that the very reason that anarchism Zabalaza page 7 southern africa gained significant ground among mass plotting, and by short-circuiting the hard industrial strategy – horizontal, directly- working class organisations in the pre- work of building mass revolutionary democratic revolutionary unions 1917 period (and classical was organisations of the class in favour of organised by industry, not craft – and relegated to tiny ineffective grouplets) militarist coups d’etat, with the result it entirely dominated the organised was that it actually did engage with the that merely adding a red star to one’s working classes in , Cuba, Uruguay, national aspirations of oppressed and flag and an appeal for financial aid was Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Portugal, the colonised peoples. This engagement took sufficient for the Soviet Union to consider United States, the Netherlands, and three main forms, but each sharing as Van a post-putsch country to be “socialist”, an briefly Russia, at different periods in the der Walt put it, “a fundamental opposition instant “people’s republic”. In addition, decades from the rise of anarchism in to empire in favour of some form of most versions of Marxist-Leninism have the First International in the 1860s until secession”: a minority of anarchists were always been hostile to worker’s control the First World War in 1914. But unlike entirely opposed to working alongside of industry and the socialisation of life those revolutionary syndicalists and nationalists who they argued intended to in general, preferring state-capitalist especially of explicitly anarchist unionists be just as capitalist and oppressive as the nationalisation and centralisation under (the anarcho-syndicalists) who feel that empire they wanted to break with (so in iron-fisted totalitarian control. radical trade unionism is sufficient to win effect they abstained from the nationalist the battle for the overthrow of capital and struggle to concentrate on working the state (and in line with Marxist- class organisation); and yet others Leninists), we recognise that a believed that national liberation specific political organ of the struggles would inexorably be working class is also necessary forced by circumstance to become to push forward the struggle revolutionary (so in effect, they within class-based mass organs merged with the nationalist forces of the national liberation struggle and pushed for a revolutionary such as trade unions. Unlike the line within them); but the majority SACP’s pretensions, however, the of anarchists welded the class ZACF recognises that it is not the struggle to the struggle against only communist organisation in empire, insisting that class the country and willingly works aspirations dominate the liberation alongside any communist who process by forming class-based takes a working class line, rather fronts rather than multi-class than a cross-class line like the fronts (in effect pushing for social SACP. revolution as the content of the Slovo, the SACP’s prime national liberation vehicle). By apologist for the Party’s shift in stark comparison, the Marxists, the early 1990s from putschist driven by their mechanical view of Marxist-Leninism towards progress towards socialism that in watered-down parliamentary effect limited its possibility to the social democracy, continued: “A developed North Atlantic countries more sophisticated version of (in effect the colonial powers themselves), the left-workerist position has recently saw no possibility of a socialist revolution The JZ Cargo Cult surfaced among union-linked academics. According to the late SACP leader arising in the colonised and post-colonial This version concedes the need for inter- Joe Slovo in his 1988 piece The South worlds against those colonial powers. class alliances but puts forward a view African Working Class and the National This disdainful North Atlantic attitude of working class political organisation Democratic Revolution, “A tendency, in classical Marxism lies at the base of more appropriate to a than loosely described as ‘’, denies why anarchism and syndicalism rooted a revolutionary political vanguard.” that the main content of the immediate themselves deeply across much of Latin This approximates in some respects conflict is national liberation which it America, Eastern Europe and the Far East , a version of syndicalism regards as a diversion from the class in the 1860s-1920s, with their militants that tries to fight on both the union and struggle. Even if it admits the relevance dominating the organised working parliamentary fronts. While recognising of national domination in the exploitative classes in countries such as Argentina, De Leonism’s historical origins in the processes, ‘workerism’ insists of a Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, Ukraine anarchist movement, the ZACF avoids this perspective of an immediate struggle for and Uruguay, establishing powerful flawed line of march. Instead, the ZACF socialism. A transitional stage of struggle, minority movements in Bulgaria, concedes the need for a revolutionary involving inter-class alliances, is alleged China, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, political vanguard – but we use the term to lead to an abandonment of socialist Korea, India, Peru, Poland, Puerto Rico, in its truly communist sense of anarchist perspectives and to a surrender of South Africa, and other countries, and and other communist militants being at working class leadership. The economic founding important pre-Communist the forefront of struggle, not directing struggles between workers and bosses at Party revolutionary socialist networks in it from the rear as with Lenin, Trotsky, the point of production (which inevitably colonised countries like Algeria, Egypt, Mao & Co. Warnings about the inherent spill over into the broader political arena) Lebanon, Tunisia, Malaysia, , flaw in the cross-class nature of the NDR is claimed to be the ‘class struggle’. This Morocco, Mozambique, the Philippines and were spelled out so by Peter Hudson is sometimes coupled with a view that the Vietnam. Lenin and the Bolsheviks finally in the journal Transformation in 1986: trade union movement is the main political took the national question seriously and “That the oppressed nation needs to representative of the working class.” broke Marxism out of its North Atlantic reappropriate from the oppressing nation What Slovo describes as “workerism” ghetto, but “solved” it in the crudest its economic resources if it is to attain a is a caricature of what we anarchist- fashion possible: by lumping together proper independence does not guarantee communists would call revolutionary genuine working-class communist the anti-capitalist character of such a syndicalism. Syndicalism is anarchism’s aspirations with bourgeois-nationalist reappropriation. The resources in question Zabalaza page 8 southern africa could conceivably be transferred into the but what intrigues us is the similarity the judiciary when in fact the target control of a class of black capitalists and not between their politics and those of was predictably those within the ANC’s state functionaries. This is precisely what the defunct fascist ruling parties, but own ranks who stood for the choice of seems to have been envisaged by Nelson between the processes in play. The ANC retreating from early radicalism (except Mandela in 1956.” I’ve already summarily came to power based in part on mass in rhetoric), settling the ANC into power dispensed with the money-grubbing mobilisation (and back-room deals with as a conventional centrist neoliberal Mandela and his tacit endorsement of the conservative NP elite) and now rules party. This explains why the SACP and mass murder. But what Hudson could not in its own name. But as even the ANC Cosatu leadership backed the Zuma see – and his fears are echoed in the left’s leadership has often publicly conceded, camp. Only a fool would presume that whining about the supposed implosion of the party has experienced difficulty in Zuma was in any way more worker- ANC Alliance politics, the rise of pork- translating its culture of early radicalism friendly or “socialist” than Mbeki, but barrel patronage and the opportunism into conventional politics, of channelling that was not the point for the Communist of the supposedly selfless cadres of the the energy of the mass mobilisations and Cosatu leadership. The point was NDR – is that the very reason for the rise of the 1980s into the narrow slot of the that strategically, they believed that the of the JZ Cargo Cult lies at the heart of ballot box, of moving from operating as best way to rein in the aspirations of the the NDR. “Cargo cults” arose in many a “liberation movement” to working as working class, peasantry and poor was underdeveloped parts of the world upon to try and radicalise their “Revolution” first contact with Western imperialist by emotional and often racist appeals to wealth, but the term gained currency the thwarted aspirations of the masses. in the Pacific Ocean during World War II Not that they intend satisfying those when the Allies tried to buy the loyalty aspirations as this is impossible under of Polynesian and other peoples with capitalism, but they intend keeping material goods dropped from the sky by the people mobilised in their favour by planes in cargo crates – and the gullible continually raising the spectre of enemies among them took this as a sign of favour within (the Mbeki faction and quasi- and of perpetual replenishment by the syndicalist tendencies in Cosatu) and gods. A similar fever has taken hold in without (other political organisations, the South African “liberation movement” media and the “counter-revolutionary” politics, not least among the ANC Youth judiciary). It is a strategy for adhering the League, in which effusive praise for the masses to the elite despite the elite’s clear new sky-god Zuma is expected to benefit intentions not to deliver on promises, a from a shower of gifts from above. So via bourgeois strategy successfully applied cronyism, nepotism and outright looting, in, for example, China under Mao all of the heartfelt desires of the aspirant Zedong’s populist “Cultural Revolution”. waBenzi [the Mercedes Benz-driving Now we don’t expect Zuma’s experiment elite] are realised. to go as far as Mao’s but the genie of populism, once released from its bottle, The Roots of the ANC-Cope is hard to put back in. And when that Split populism starts to adopt aspects of Zulu In his reappraisal of the fascist chauvinism, it moves inexorably in the phenomenon of the 1920s-1940s, The direction of right-wing populism, shifting Anatomy of Fascism, Robert O. Paxton the ANC as a whole towards the cultural writes that in Fascist Italy and Nazi a government. What lies at the base of and economic right. One last point: while Germany, the two cases where fascist the ANC-COPE split is this disconnection the ANC under Zuma is a neoliberal party parties, based in part on mass right- between the aspirations of much of that disguises this fact thanks to the pink populist movements (and back-room the Alliance base for a fulfilment of the tint given to its policies by the SACP and deals with the conservative elites), came promises of liberation for radical change Cosatu leadership, Cope is little better, to power and ruled in their own name in their living circumstances, and the and in fact appears to be distinguishing (rather than as junior partners in a coalition Alliance leadership’s pro-capitalist need to itself as an unabashed neoliberal party, as in Francoist Spain), the new rulers curb those aspirations. On the one hand, thus a false choice between the two is were faced with a conundrum regarding the leadership has to continually refer presented to poor and working class how to adapt the radicalism of their early back to the depredations of apartheid voters. We may use the anti-Cope taunt mobilisation to the more prosaic realities and the ANC, SACP and Cosatu’s role in “Nope! Our Dreams Can’t Fit in Your of rule. Paxton argues convincingly that the resistance, in order to keep the base Ballot Box”, but the ANC, because of its two paths were open to them. Either reminded of its aspirations – but on the flirtation with populist mobilisation and as in Italy, the regime stabilised itself other hand, they are forced to try to false radicalisation, because of its self- by retreating from its early radicalism “educate” the masses to relinquish their congratulatory myth-making capacity (although maintaining the rhetoric of the dreams of full liberation, which is just not vested in the state broadcaster, because Fascist Revolution), becoming in essence possible under the hierarchical capitalist of its position in charge of the firearms a conventional conservative-authoritarian state which the ANC-SACP-Cosatu elite of the security forces, and because of its regime. In Germany, the path chosen now has a hand in ruling. It’s a delicate vast ill-gotten wealth, stripped from the was that of ever-increasing radicalism, balancing act, and the balance was upset poor, still represents the greatest threat notable in the progressive escalation of by the succession battle between the to direct democracy and true liberation in measures against the Jews, culminating Mbeki and Zuma factions. South Africa. in the execution of the “Final Solution,” The sheer aggression of the Zuma a path that took the regime ever closer camp (calls to “kill for Zuma” and Zuma’s Against the NDR: Towards a to the edge of the precipice, finally own machine-gun song) well before Fresh Revolution destroying itself rather than surrender. the split seemed to be misdirected at So what do we believe in? And how Now the ANC is very far from fascist, perceived enemies in the media and is our revolutionary fervour different to Zabalaza page 9 southern africa the kits-konstabel [“instant constable,” formation of a “Revolutionary Junta” or Federation (ACF) of the 1990s in Britain a state-sponsored, ill-trained Zululand “National Defence Council” that would in which the anarchists are the “driving policeman of the late 1980s / early undertake the management of the force” of the revolutionary process – 1990s] radicalism of the Zuma camp? war against fascism, the supervision albeit only as an integral part of the After all, in the major that of revolutionary order, international working class. As the ACF put it, they and have decayed into totalitarianism – relations and revolutionary propaganda. we are opposed to “the Leninist concept Mexico, Russia, Ukraine, Spain and This Council (junta means council in which springs from the managerial strata Cuba – there were active moves by the Spanish) was to be based on the unions and the intelligentsia which seek to anarchists and syndicalists to push the and militia, and would include the United dragoon the workers into a new form of revolution forward in the direction of free Marxist Workers’ Party (POUM), an anti- oppression: the worker’s state”. So this . As the Russian Revolution Stalinist communist party, as well as those is the anarchist-communist conception of slid into state-capitalist dictatorship under anarchist organisations still dedicated revolution: socialism from below, created the Bolsheviks, for instance, by 1921, the to the . The Friends by horizontally federated, directly- Kronstadt Soviet was dominated as it of Durruti advocated the seizure of all democratic working class organs, leaving had been since 1917 by anarchists, Left arms and financial reserves, increased the parasitic classes totally out in the Social Revolutionaries and Maximalist socialisation of the economy and food cold. Our revolution is an international Social Revolutionaries, with as many distribution, thus completing the process socialist revolution by a front of the as 776 Bolsheviks defecting to these of collectivisation, the equalisation of all oppressed classes (of which the anarchist- groupings that year. In February 1921, pay and the restructuring of the armed communists are an integral part), crossing these groupings reacted strongly to a forces, armed defence against attacks on all false colonial borders, and as such it bloody Checkist crack-down on a general the enemies of the people, working class is against a narrow, nationalist pseudo- strike by workers in nearby Petrograd solidarity, including a policy of unity with revolution that subordinates the interests with the Petropavlovsk Resolution, taken the socialist of the poor to those of the rich who live at a mass meeting on board off them. the battleship Petropavlovsk. The Resolution called for “new Conclusion: For elections to the Soviets,” “by Revolutionary, secret ballot,” and “preceded Communism by free electoral propaganda” But are we, the ZACF, who admit and coupled to “Freedom of openly that we are a tiny force on the speech and of the press for extra-parliamentary communist left, workers and peasants, for the calling for a fresh revolution against anarchists, and for the Left the ANC? We don’t believe either that Socialist parties” (ie: for all conditions for a true social revolution progressive forces, but not for are imminent, nor do we believe in the the right wing) and the “right correctness of the strategy of those of assembly, and freedom factions of the communist left who want for trade union and peasant to adopt a quasi-De Leonist approach of organisations”. But these direct- combining valuable street power with democratic demands threatened useless ballot-box “action,” a strategy Bolshevik power and the we are convinced supplants the former Kronstadt Soviet was drowned in with the latter and herds true working- blood, forced to call for a “third class strength into the slaughter-house revolution” against Bolshevik of bourgeois politics. Yes, we recognise power, necessary in Kronstadt’s that South Africa’s revolutionary eyes to complete the liberation potential is great thanks to us living struggle which had defeated first in one of the world’s most unequal the Tsarist regime and then the societies, but as Lenin accurately bourgeois-democratic Kerensky said, “Without revolutionary theory, regime. The immediate socialisation there can be no real revolutionary of the economy and destruction of movement.” The role of true state-capitalist (Boshevik) power communists in South Africa on the was necessary in order to complete eve of the 2009 General Election the revolutionary process. Likewise, General Union of Workers – whether they find themselves in the as the Spanish Revolution decayed under (UGT), and non-collaboration with foreign rank-and-file of the SACP (and we are Spanish Communist Party (PCE) influence and local capitalist forces. In Towards a aware of many good comrades there), or – aided and abetted by those “anarchist” Fresh Revolution, the Friends of Durruti’s of extra-parliamentary communist outfits leaders who had betrayed the working demands constitute a key document of such as our own is to educate the people class and anarchist principles by entering the anarchist-communist tradition to about the false promises offered up by into government – the Friends of Durruti, which the ZACF belongs and which runs the parasites and wanna-be parasites, a grouping of revolutionary militiamen from and his Alliance for whether of the ANC, Cope, DA, IFP, ID, and militiawomen named after the famed Socialist Democracy in which anarchists UDM, ID or any other pretender to the guerrilla fighter Buenaventura Durruti, acted as “invisible pilots in the centre throne of ruling our hard-working but issued a call, Towards a Fresh Revolution, of the popular storm,” through Nestor bitterly poor productive classes. The to complete the revolutionary process. It Makhno and his Revolutionary Insurgent revolutionary, grassroots communist advocated a break with the Popular Front Army of the Ukraine in the 1920s in line of march is this: to eschew all forms government, the military defence of the which anarchists acted as a “leading of bourgeois compromise and to move remaining collectives against the PCE echelon” of militants within the working in the direction of a true future social and other reactionary forces, and argued class, through Georges Fontenis and revolution, driven by the wretched of that the anarcho-syndicalist National his Libertarian Communist Federation the earth, that goes beyond the fake Confederation of Labour (CNT) entry in France in the 1950s which anarchist- “National Democratic Revolution” by into the government showed the lack of communists constituted as a “vanishing destroying the power of the capitalist a serious plan to extend and defend the vanguard” that gradually disappeared state and socialising and redistributing in revolution. as anarchist-communism advanced, equal, directly-democratic fashion all the The Friends of Durruti advocated the and through the Anarchist Communist stolen wealth of this country. Zabalaza page 10 southern africa A Bitter~taste to the sugarcane: 10 years of southern african anarchist writings on the pro-democracy struggle in swaziland (1996-2006) by michael schmidt (zacf)

This pamphlet is the result of more few years, Swaziland would be multi-party militarist adventures which we believe will than a decade’s militant support by democracy with a constitutional monarchy only alienate the liberation movements southern African anarchists for the Swazi (perhaps not dissimilar to Lesotho) was from the bulk of the Swazi people, and liberation struggle. The southern African proved wrong: on the one hand, the expose Swazi militants to unnecessary anarchist movement arose in the late Swazi monarchy dug in its heels while risk. This argument aside, we hope that 1980s as a rejection of the militarized offering false “consultative” conferences relations will be repaired with the SSN, race-supremacist apartheid state in and foot-dragging constitutional review and we remain staunch supporters of the South Africa, a state that undermined commissions to the disaffected Swazi Swazi struggle and of our tactic of Swazi democracy and propped up autocracy people, and on the other hand, other than anarchists working within the rank-and- in the region, including the Kingdom of from the Congress of South African Trade file of the SFTU, Pudemo, Swayoco and Swaziland where multiparty democracy Unions (Cosatu), sadly, little real support any emergent mass social movements to had been outlawed by royal decree in was forthcoming from South Africa’s push the struggle for democracy forward 1973. Initially the movement’s focus new African National Congress (ANC) in a free communist direction. Our was narrowly on anti-conscription, anti- government. The king longstanding support racism and anti-fascism within South played for time… and the for the Swazi liberation Africa, but as it established an organised workers, their backs bent struggle has clearly presence in the early 1990s, it firstly like sickles, carried on shifted from early, recovered the syndicalist tradition that cutting his sugarcane. crude sloganeering had founded the first black, coloured and By 2005, the ZACF had towards a much clearer Indian trade unions in South Africa in the members in Swaziland understanding of the late 1910s, and secondly established a itself, working within the battlefield. But there broader set of principles around, among Swaziland Youth Congress are still some glaring others, national liberation struggles (Swayoco), youth wing of gaps in our analysis that took a distinctly anarchist working- the outlawed People’s of the situation in class line. The movement matured and United Democratic Swaziland. We require became first a national, then a regional Movement (Pudemo). a proper balance- presence in the late 1990s/early 2000s, The improvement in the of-forces analysis to with organised anarchists emerging in quality of our analysis, understand the political Zambia, Zimbabwe and Swaziland. This based for the first time on paralysis that still grips collection of writings represents the grassroots Swazi militant Swaziland. We require a collective effort of two organisations, the knowledge, becomes sociological study of the Workers’ Solidarity Federation of 1995- immediately apparent reasons why patronage 1999 with its journal Workers’ Solidarity, with a far more detailed by the chieftaincies and its successor, the Zabalaza Anarchist understanding of the inner workings of manages to continue to tie many Swazis Communist Federation founded in 2003 the Pudemo, Swayoco and trade union to the undemocratic system. We require a (restructured as the Zabalaza Anarchist movements – as well as improved insight comprehensive analysis of the economic Communist Front in 2007) and its into the manoeuvres of the parasitic foundations of the Swazi state and the journal Zabalaza: a Journal of Southern Swazi elite. We end the collection with supportive role of South African and African Revolutionary Anarchism. our most controversial contribution to British capital. We require an analysis For the impoverished majority of the the Swazi pro-democracy debate: two of the nature of the state’s armed Swazi people, there is a bitter taste to of my articles published in the Saturday forces, especially the King’s traditional the sugarcane, that crop that is so Star covering the emergence of the regiments and how these secure loyalty emblematic of their hard labour. With this clandestine Swaziland Liberation force, to the throne through status and collection, we appeal directly to those an officially-denied but strongly-hinted- employment. And we need to develop who support the parasitic King Mswati at armed wing of Pudemo, driven it a deeper understanding of the SFTU’s, III by the back-breaking work of cutting seems by a panic that it’s “rush-hour” Pudemo’s and Swayoco’s many-layered – the sugarcane with which he sweetens strategy for liberation by 2008 was and sometimes contradictory – approach his tea. The oppressed and exploited of behind schedule (and in fact, as we now to the democracy question. These are Swaziland need rather to be cutting the all know, it has failed) – and the ZACF’s weaknesses we will readily admit to. But walking-cane which props up the ageing response to that. These newspaper we remain committed to trying to cut Tinkhundla monarchy – in order to move articles, it must be admitted, led to bitter the Gordian knot of Swazi politics which rapidly towards true and full democracy. recriminations against myself personally has held the people in thrall for so long, As readers will readily see, our analyses by the Swaziland Solidiarity Network a knot that in today’s global recession shifted from a rather simplistic syndicalist (SSN) – Pudemo/Swayoco and supporters looks more and more like a hangman’s hailing of the wave of general strikes by – in exile in South Africa, with whom I had noose. We offer our insights humbly to the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions worked for over a decade, and from exiles our Swazi friends and comrades, both at (SFTU) of 1994 (this first precipitated and supporters as far afield as Canada. home and in exile, as starting-points of by South Africa’s first democratic In my defence, I can only say that as a debate which we hope will help advance election), 1995, 1996 and 1997 to a more journalist I conducted a proper in-depth your struggle for full social, political and nuanced understanding of the non-party investigation into a vital regional issue, economic equality and freedom. Tinkhundla electoral chieftaincy system and that as an anarchist-communist Download the PDF pamphlet from: and of the struggle against it. But Workers’ militant, in line with my organisation, I http://www.zabalaza.net/pdfs/ Solidarity’s 1998 prediction that within a take a strong stance against premature sapams/zacf_bitter_sugarcane.pdf Zabalaza page 11 southern africa four tools for Community Control - Part 1 Mutual aid: an anarchist concept at work in southern africa by Stefanie Knoll (zacf)

Mutual Aid is an important and which exist all over the world. Modern charity “bears a character of inspiration relevant anarchist concept. It shows anthropology has confirmed Kropotkin’s from above, and accordingly, implies a how aspects of a better world already theory that there is no human nature. certain superiority of the giver upon the exist everywhere, including in Southern Contrary to taking any side in the big receiver” (Kropotkin 2006 [1902]: 233). Africa, and how we can achieve this debate, Kropotkin said that there is both It rids the donor of feelings of guilt when world, building on and extending existing mutual struggle and mutual aid among s/he can give money to an organisation cultural practices. humans and animals but that mutual which then gives food or clothing, for aid was more important for the survival example, to people in need. As the saying Kropotkin’s Research is Still of the species. This means that even goes, philanthropists give back in public Relevant though humans sometimes fight each a portion of what they steal in private. Of The Russian Piotr Kropotkin was not other, they nevertheless cooperate more course, in times of huge crisis such as a only a key anarchist militant and thinker than they fight. famine, when there is not enough food but also a well-known geographer and Mutual aid means that people help and people are starving, food needs to scientist. His most famous book “Mutual one another, not only materially but also be given to those who starve. In general, Aid”, a concept to be discussed in this emotionally, instead of or, however, giving food creates dependency article, was a strong critique of Social worse even, fighting each other. It means and destroys the local economy by Darwinism [1] and generalisations that they cooperate instead of compete importing free foreign food. It destroys about human nature [2]. Starting in the in many aspects of life for everyone’s people’s independence and self-help. 19th century there has been an ongoing benefit. It means realising that social Charity, not only coming from debate about human nature around support is better for everyone and that churches but also NGOs, is therefore the question as to whether humans are we survive better when we help one counterproductive to the development of either essentially good or bad. So-called another instead of fighting. It means that a better world in which everyone is equal idealists have held that humans are you see other people as comrades and and free. actually good and that civilisation is the friends and not as enemies. Mutual aid cause of war. Realists on the other hand means sharing without the expectation of Mutual Aid Among Animals have claimed - and this is the dominating equal return. Furthermore, mutual aid is and Humans in General idea within politics in general (all over an example of living in harmony with one Kropotkin spends a lot of time in the world) - that humans are essentially another instead of having conflict. General his book describing mutual aid among bad and Piotrwould always kill each other examples of mutual aid are hunting in insects and other animals. This is not (Hobbes’ war of all against all) if it wasn’t common to achieve better results, living of immediate relevance for this article for the state to intervene, making the state in common for mutual protection, helping nor for Southern African society, yet look like a conflict-resolving institution one another with work of all kinds, giving it links with human society in general. necessary to bring about and uphold each other mutual support in times Describing mutual aid among animals peace. The theory of the “survival of the of need. Concrete Southern African supports his argument, which is based on fittest” therefore justified the existence examples will be discussed below. evolutionary facts, after all, humans are of the state and disasters that came Mutual aid does not imply that aid descendents of certain animal species. It along with it: colonialism, imperialism, has to be totally equal. Mutual aid rather shows that mutual aid has been a natural capitalism, as well as every other form of operates along the communist principle instinct among humans even before they exploitation not necessarily connected to “from each according to ability to each were humans. the state (but often to religion) including according to need”. This comes from Kropotkin gives great examples of racism, sexism [3], heterosexism [4] the idea that we are all one, that all of mutual aid among animals and that in and ableism [5]. However, as Kropotkin humanity belongs together, that we all most of the animal kingdom mutual aid – has extensively shown for the first time, should work for everyone. Because of the and not what we usually hear, the survival and what is now common sense within practice of mutual aid, Kropotkin writes, of the fittest – is the rule. As he writes: anthropology [6], is that there is no people realise that they depend on one “The ants and termites have renounced such thing as human nature. Humans another, that everyone’s happiness the “Hobbesian war,” and they are the are neither inherently good nor bad, but depends on the happiness of all and it better for it” (Kropotkin 2006 [1902]: both. The question therefore is if they shows that all are equal. As one can see, 11). are more good than bad and how to deal this is close to the meaning of Ubuntu, As we can see in nature, there are with conflict, poverty and other problems an African concept to be discussed below. many species of animals that live in However, mutual aid does not imply that arising in our society today. herds. Kropotkin shows how animals not aid only goes in one direction. This is only cooperate with members of their own What is Mutual Aid? charity. species but also across species for mutual Mutual Aid, the concept that people protection (e.g. Zebras and Giraffes). He help one another, was first thoroughly “Church” and Charity does not deny that animals kill each other studied by Kropotkin and published as a Just like the state (see below) has because they need to eat or because they book with the same title in 1902 [7]. This tried to intervene and destroy mutual have to compete over potential partners. study of mutual aid, which he thinks is aid, the church has done similar things. In However, he makes it clear that what we an important factor in human evolution, general churches, mosques, synagogues are told (kill or be killed) is not the full was an important critique of the idea and temples [9] destroy people’s self- story. Animals don’t just kill each other of the “survival of the fittest”. In this help and put charity in its place. and those that kill most are not always book Kropotkin shows the importance of Charity is not mutual aid. It is a way of the fittest. He shows that most animals mutual aid amongst various animal and giving from someone who has to someone can only survive because they cooperate human societies. He shows how societies who doesn’t have, thereby creating a and watch out for each other. based on mutual aid are more peaceful, situation of dependency. Charity does Kropotkin shows that mutual aid a concept that is taken up again by not empower people, it does not help is a general rule among animals and anthropologists to describe common them to get back on their own feet, to try links this to humans. He writes that practice among peaceful societies [8] help themselves. According to Kropotkin, humans are no exception to this rule of Zabalaza page 12 southern africa nature, especially since they have been nearly impossible even for workers to admiration. According to him they lived very defenceless creatures for most of survive on their own. This is why mutual under “primitive [11] communism” their existence (before they invented aid still exists in a capitalist society and (that is communism in a non-industrial weapons). Therefore, humans have this is also why it is growing and has to society). Like many other groups in Africa always lived in societies to protect and grow if we want to build a better world. (and around the world), the Bushmen help one another. As Kropotkin writes: Even though the state and other not only practiced [12] mutual aid and “Unbridled individualism is a modern institutions (such as various churches) shared everything with everyone – even growth” (Kropotkin 2006 [1902]: 71). have tried to destroy mutual aid, it still people not belonging to their group – but Kropotkin shows how mutual aid exists today, even after over 100 years also did not have chiefs and can therefore has existed among humans at all times, of capitalism which created individualism be considered to have been “primitive from hunting and gathering societies, and gave the ‘survival of the fittest’ anarchists” [13]. They mistrusted chiefs to agricultural, to medieval societies in new meaning. Indeed, often it seems who tried to get a bigger piece of the Europe up until modern times. He shows that within capitalism you have to cake thereby threatening to destroy how mutual aid was a means of protection exploit and be selfish in order to get by. egalitarian practises. Kropotkin wrote of poor and working class people against But, as Kropotkin writes: “The Mutual- about the Bushmen that “they used to exploitation by slave-owners, bosses, Aid tendency in man has so remote an hunt in common, and divided the spoil authoritarian chiefs, kings or other origin, and is so deeply interwoven with without quarrelling; that they never politicians who not only led wars against all the past evolution of the human race, abandoned their wounded, and displayed other groups of people but also against that it has been maintained by mankind strong affection to their comrades” their own people. They exploited them up to the present time, notwithstanding (Kropotkin 2006 [1902]: 72). And: “If as well as punished them for not paying all vicissitudes of history. It was chiefly anything is given to a Hottentot, he at taxes or not joining the army. Kropotkin evolved during periods of peace and once divides it among all present […]. He makes it clear that it is only a minority prosperity” (Kropotkin 2006 [1902]: cannot eat alone, and, however hungry, of humans that love to lead wars, most 184). he calls those who pass by to share his people just want to live peacefully food” (Kropotkin 2006 [1902]: 73). with their family, friends and However, mutual aid has not neighbours. As he writes: “At no only existed among the Bushmen period of man’s life were wars the in Southern Africa and it is by far normal state of existence. While nothing that was only practised in warriors exterminated each other, the past. There are many examples and the priests celebrated their of mutual aid in Southern Africa that massacres, the masses continued to are known under various terms, but live their daily life, they prosecuted all of them are similar. Furthermore, their daily toil.” (Kropotkin 2006 we can see mutual aid among all [1902]: 94) ethnic groups in Southern Africa. Furthermore, Kropotkin shows In Southern Africa mutual aid is how the state has tried to destroy often based on the idea of Ubuntu, practices of mutual aid, for example which even though it is a Zulu word, is by trying to destroy self-help among commonly used among other groups poor people and putting a state throughout Southern Africa. Ubuntu bureaucracy in its place. Instead of is often written and talked about, leaving poor people alone so that especially in South Africa. It is also they can continue growing their own often connected to the church. While food, they imposed taxes so that certain aspects of Ubuntu are similar poor people had to seek additional to mutual aid, there are many aspects work in order to pay them. of it that lead people to accept their But not only politicians tell poverty and are therefore contrary us that we need to lead wars to the advancement of the human to protect us from other “evil” condition. It is therefore much more people and that we need states interesting to talk about real mutual to protect us from our own evil aid practises that are not connected human nature: also historians have to any religion. tended to “exaggerate the part of In general, helping one another human life given to struggles and in the fields is very common in rural to underrate its peaceful moods. Africa. Most of the time fields are […] but they paid no attention worked in common and the person whatever to the life of the masses, Piotr Kropotkin (1842-1921)-Russian anarchist whose fields are being worked on although the masses chiefly used Mutual Aid in Southern Africa that day provides meal and drinks to toil peacefully while the few indulged Mutual aid is something that for everyone helping. Fields are worked in fighting” (Kropotkin 2006 [1902]: 96). everyone growing up in a family or a rotationally and so everyone’s fields will This means we constantly get told that close community knows about. Family have been worked and everyone will humans are war-like creatures and would members usually help each other out have had food during ploughing and kill one another. Reality, however, shows without expecting equal return. In small harvesting season. the opposite, and Kropotkin was one of rural communities worldwide this is still The same communal effort can be the first to point this out. Most humans common practise not only among family seen all over Southern Africa when it prefer to live peacefully. Kropotkin writes members but also among neighbours. In comes to helping one another building “In reality, man is so far from the war-like many parts of the world, and especially in houses. being he is supposed to be” (Kropotkin Southern Africa, we can see mutual aid on In addition to cultural practises, new 2006 [1902]: 113). Mutual aid is one sign an even bigger, cultural scale. There are examples of mutual aid are emerging of how many of us live along peaceful even specific terms for mutual aid and it all over Southern Africa when people lines and how we prefer to help each is still widely practised with new forms (especially women) get together to form other instead of fight each other. evolving due to harsh circumstances. social societies, such as burial or funeral Furthermore, without mutual aid, Kropotkin already wrote about societies, in which they help each other to poor and working class people could not save money for a funeral and help each mutual aid among the Bushmen [10] survive. The capitalist system makes it in the Kalahari, of which he talked with other out in the case of a death in the Zabalaza page 13 southern africa family. Such societies also give emotional Izandla ziyagezana (Zulu) literally other’. support to relatives of the deceased. translated means “when washing one’s In Swaziland, lilima is the Swati term These recent creations mainly have to do hands, the one hand washes the other for mutual aid. It refers to neighbours with the consequences of poverty. helping neighbours. Another new example in South Africa Izandla Ziyagezana There are many more examples from are stokvels in which people help each all over Southern Africa which cannot be other save money which at the end of a included in this article, yet they are all decided upon period of time can be spent very similar and very alive, showing that on decided upon necessary household despite the high level of crime (which products (such as fridges). has to do with the immense inequality in Crèches in poor areas in South Africa in South Africa) and also anti-social crime, which an otherwise unemployed woman there is already a lot of potential on which takes care of employed women’s children we can build to create a better world. are very common and the caretaker will get food in return. Relevance for Our Society Today Culture-Based Mutual Aid A lot of the practise of mutual aid One good example of how only has been forgotten, mostly because chiefs or a minority of people wanted to Clasped hands are the traditional it has been destroyed by the state. lead wars and the majority of a certain anarchist salute The state does not want people to be population wanted to live peacefully independent, to grow their own food and are the Zulus, who are said to be very one” and vice versa. Each hand helps be autonomous from it, but it wants to violent. But mutual aid is just as common the other one to get clean. Therefore as control people. People even forget how among Zulus, if not more so, than in humans we should help each other like to grow their own food. They become other ethnic groups in South Africa. While our hands help each other. workers if they are lucky, or unemployed some Zulu chiefs obviously were violent In Sotho and Tswana culture mutual workers whose only chance to get by is (like all chiefs because power corrupts) aid is known as letsema. Letsema is the to beg or commit crime. City life often the masses lived peacefully and always coming together of people for a common not only destroys people’s cultures, it supported each other. Up to the present purpose, and further results in the also destroys our society by creating there are many examples of cultural benefits flowing to all of those who are individualism and making people forget based mutual aid among the Zulu. part of a letsema. It refers to about mutual aid. Kropotkin showed this In general, Zulu society is built village work on common projects, for when he wrote that while “among the around the saying “umuntu ngumuntu example building infrastructure. Hottentots, it would be scandalous to eat ngabantu”, which translates to English Another communist aspect in Sotho without having loudly called out thrice as “a person is a person through other and also Pondo culture is the raising of wither there is not somebody wanting people”, which means that one needs children communally which means that to share the food. All that a respectable the communal whole to advance one’s everyone takes care of all the children, citizen has to do now is to pay tax and to individuality. they are seen as children of the whole let the starving starve” (Kropotkin 2006 Mutual aid is known under various community. In other words, everyone [1902]: 188). In times of crises this is terms in Zulu. One of these terms is ilimo helps to raise everyone’s children. fatal. which refers to the working of someone’s In Pedi culture kobufedi refers to In many townships we see a few fields in common during ploughing season working each other’s fields in common. people growing community vegetable and everyone who helps will get food Everyone helps in the planting of gardens and sharing other things. The and traditional beer. The following week vegetables and taking care of the crops above mentioned examples are a sign someone else’s fields will be ploughed. and the herd because it serves the of mutual aid alive and growing because The Zulu word for a funeral society purpose of the whole community. people start to realise that the solution to is masingcwabane and it literally means In Xhosa culture dibanisani means many of our problems is working together “let’s bury each other”. People in a “let’s work together for a better future”. to help one another. Kropotkin has made community contribute a certain amount It is a general term that refers to people it clear how we in today’s society and of money every month. This money coming together and helping each especially in the cities can learn from is used when someone else who was other. For example initiations take place age-old practises and from what is still contributing passed away. A fixed amount somewhere else every year and people alive in rural parts of the world. Mutual is withdrawn from the bank account and in one place prepare everything for it. aid is one way of taking back some of our given to the family of the deceased. It If shacks burn people help each other independence from the state or charity covers funeral costs, buying a coffin, to build them up again. At funerals or organisations. It is an aspect on which we hiring a tent and chairs etc. weddings people help each other, for have to build a better world and on which The Zulu word masakhane, which example to clean and cook. a better world has to be based. means “let’s build one another” refers to In Venda culture mutual aid is known the building of houses in common. as uthusana which means ‘helping each

Notes: 1. Darwinism (theory of evolution) applied to humans, the theory of the “survival of the fittest”, 2. When I talk about human nature, I am referring to the debate whether humans are essentially good or bad. 3. discrimination of women 4. discrimination of homosexuals 5. discrimination of disabled people 6. the study of social and cultural aspects of humanity 7. Kropotkin, Peter (2006 [1902]) Mutual Aid. A Factor of Evolution. Mineola, New York: Dover 8. societies that do not know any form of conflict, e.g. the Bushmen in the Kalahari 9. not limited to one particular religion as many practise charity 10. whom he also called “Hottentot”, a common term at the time he lived but now rightly considered to be inappropriate. We use the term Bushmen because it is how the people describe themselves. 11. the term primitive was not used as a derogative term by Kropotkin 12. I am writing in the past because a great amount of Bushmen culture has been destroyed by colonialism and capitalism 13. Anarchist societies have been discussed by various authors, see e.g. Barclay, Harold (1996): People Without Government. An Anthropology of . London: Kahn & Averill Zabalaza page 14 southern africa , Zimbabwe’’” s party-political s“ titch-”up: how the zanu-pf/mdc deal ignored civil society by jonathan p. (zacf) The tragedy which has beset the people that of Chávez and Castro is not surprising. thus wasting important struggles, and of Zimbabwe, itself an indictment against What is also not surprising, albeit perhaps failed to mobilise people on the streets the praxis of armed struggle controlled a bit contradictory on the surface, is that in response to Zanu-PF election-rigging by a central political elite, is well-known. these people blindly accept Mugabe’s and consequent campaigns of terror. Zimbabweans waged a courageous anti-imperialist rhetoric while he, at Despite having its roots in struggle, its guerilla war against colonialism only for the same time as denouncing Western leader himself coming from a struggle the leader of that liberation movement, imperialism, happily accepts the support background, the MDC has consistently who has jealously guarded his presidency of other imperialist powers, namely that moved further and further away from the since Zimbabwe’s 1980 independence, of Russia and China [1]. While it is true empowering tradition of mass struggles to have turned out to be a despot equal that both Russia and China (who shipped in its pursuit of power. to or rivaling the hated colonial ruler weapons to the Mugabe regime during That the MDC won the March 29 Ian Smith, who the people of Zimbabwe the electoral crisis, when people were elections, and has the support of the (then southern Rhodesia) fought so hard being abducted, tortured and killed at an majority of the population - even if they to rid themselves of. The Matabeleland alarming rate) vetoed the proposal put were intimidated into either not voting, massacres of the 1980s to root-out forward by the US and UK in the United or voting for Zanu-PF - is not contested predominantly Ndebele opposition to Nations Security Council to impose by anyone other than Mugabe and some Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zimbabwe African multilateral arms, travel and financial other lunatics close to him. It is also not National Union (now Zanu-Patriotic Front) sanctions on Zimbabwe - sanctions which contested that Hamas was democratically - the feared reprisals of which induce him, would undoubtedly mean more poverty elected in Gaza in 2005, but that does and high-ranking military officials close and which would hit the poor hardest, not not mean that Hamas represents, or has to him to this day to clench so strongly the high cabinet officials supposed to be at heart the best interests of the working to power, for fear of being charged with targeted - this must not be mistaken for class and poor Gazan majority. The crimes against humanity; the systematic an act of international solidarity or even number of ordinary Gazans who have abduction, torture and murder of political humanitarianism. been executed by Hamas for refusing to dissidents; the rigged elections and China supplied weapons to the collaborate with them testifies to this. consequent campaigns of harassment Mugabe regime at a time when it was Neither does it mean that, because the and intimidation of opposition party violently cracking down on its opposition, ANC won an overwhelming electoral Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) the people of Zimbabwe, and it is clear to victory in 1994, it has the best interests supporters in the wake of Mugabe’s first us that Mugabe would have used those of the South African popular classes in electoral defeat in 28 years; the shattered weapons against them had their arrival mind. In fact its policies since coming to economy, with the world’s highest inflation- not been delayed by the real working power in 1994 have consistently shown rate and the recent outbreak of cholera class solidarity of the South African that, far from caring for the masses and - which Mugabe blames on biological Transport and Allied Workers Union wishing to deliver to them, the ANC has warfare being waged against Zimbabwe (Satawu), members of which refused sought only to enrich its own elite, the by the Western imperialist powers - are to offload the weapons destined for the upper levels of its hierarchy, while at the no secret, and need not be discussed in Butcher of Harare at Durban harbour [2]. same time making the ‘better life for all’ any detail here. That Zimbabwe is in a China currently has the fastest growing it promised, and which saw it to electoral social-economic-political crisis, and has economy in the world, estimated to have victory, more and more inaccessible to been dragged there by the ‘paranoid recently overtaken that of Germany, the poor and working poor of South Africa mismanagement’ of the Mugabe regime and it is a fast-growing imperialist and the region. is widely acknowledged - outside of a power with interests across Africa. It As is the case with Hamas, which wants small circle of confused so-called leftists, must be clear then that imperialism, political control of Palestine not to deliver often, ironically, in the Western world, not humanitarianism, is its mission in the people from occupation, opening up particularly the US, who see in Mugabe Zimbabwe. To keep growing the Chinese channels for aid, development and the the same illusions of a hero who stood economy needs cheap raw materials, and freedom of movement for Palestinians to up to Western imperialism, of which they it is for this reason that China is extending seek jobs and opportunities elsewhere, see Zimbabwe as the victim, as many its presence and influence across Africa, but to impose its own fundamentalist see in Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and including Zimbabwe. ideology on the region; so too does the the now decrepit - if not secretly buried MDC seek political control of Zimbabwe - Fidel Castro. Indeed, as noted by African MDC - From Class Struggle to in order to impose its neo-liberal, free- scholar Horace Campbell, the Mugabe Neo-Liberalism market fundamentalist ideology on the regime has been sure to capitalise on its The Movement for Democratic Change people of Zimbabwe, thus enriching victimhood status, and (MDC), main opposition to Zanu-PF, its political elite, and businessmen ‘The Zimbabwe government is very emerged out of the trade union movement and -women sympathetic to it, as has aware of the anti-imperialist and anti- and the popular struggles of the 1990s as done the ANC. This is because the racist sentiments among oppressed the political arm of the MDC’s neo-liberal ideology says that, peoples and thus has deployed a range of and an alternative to the ruling party. Its if Zimbabwe can be made attractive to propagandists inside and outside of the leader, Morgan Tsvangirai’s credentials foreign investment - even if it means country in a bid to link every problem in thus lie, understandably, in his fairly suppressing workers’ struggles for better Zimbabwe to international sanctions by heroic role as a trade union militant, wages - and the economy orientated the EU and USA. Anti-imperialists in the and it is largely for this reason that he towards competing on the global market USA cite the Zimbabwe Reconstruction commands the support he does. Since the - as opposed to meeting people’s needs and Development Act (Zidera) – passed end of the last decade the MDC’s primary - money will flow into the country at the by the US Congress in 2001 – as being sphere of political engagement, however, top, to the corporate CEOs, land- and a source of economic woe for poor has been in contesting elections, and it mine-owners etc., and, the more wealth Zimbabweans.’ has all but forgotten its heritage in the is accumulated at the top, will eventually That Mugabe can count amongst tradition of working class militancy. Since trickle down the class pyramid to those, his few supporters, then, some of those turning its focus to elections the MDC has wretchedly poor, at the bottom. This is who naively swallow his pseudo-anti- avoided or been unwilling to call for or the same ideology as adopted by the imperialist rhetoric as they and others do support strikes and other mass actions, ANC and we can see that, despite a Zabalaza page 15 southern africa few blacks having become extremely former colonial power, was very wiling than lose or share this access, wants rich and a new black elite having been to send aid into Zimbabwe, and to lend to expand it. Trade between Africa and created, the wealth gap in South Africa is it money to develop its economy. But China increased 35% between the years in fact widening; the money accumulated once again this is not about helping poor 2004 and 2005, for example, and China at the top simply does not trickle down, Zimbabweans, it is about developing the is heavily dependent on oil and other or does so in such tiny trickles as to have Zimbabwean economy so that it can once natural resource supplies from Africa. The no impact. This mistaken belief, held by again become profitable, and the aid Congo, for example, is one of China’s top the MDC, has led it to abandon its real packages would have strings attached suppliers of copper, cobalt and coltan, supporters - the organised working class, by the World Bank, IMF and perhaps to and the links that Robert Mugabe and his and the tradition of struggle - and into all a lesser extent the African Development cronies have maintained in the Congo sorts of unholy alliances; such as that with Bank. In the wake of the global economic since Zimbabwe’s military involvement the former colonial power, thus allowing crisis, an economically viable Zimbabwe there in 1998 - when DRC President Mugabe to play his MDC-sponosored-by- could be helpful in alleviating the profit- Kabila and Mugabe signed mining imperialism card. It is the weakness of the pinch the capitalist class are feeling, but contracts, worth millions of US dollars, MDC’s politics which has led it away from few countries would now have the money for corporations owned by Mugabe and its power-base and the tradition of mass available for the long-term investments his family - make it possible to believe struggles and worker militancy into the in infrastructure, health and education that there is another reason why China is spectacle of party-political negotiations necessary for this. cozying up to Mugabe; because it wants to and unholy alliances, which have allowed The possibility of investment in have strategic access to the mineral-rich Mugabe to play the only card that Zimbabwe, credit loans and development DRC. Another such link is arms dealer John continues to win him support; in Bredenkamp, British Aerospace’s doing so, sowing its own demise. (BAE) Southern African agent who Of course it has been said by the ‘has had a controversial career, West - prior to the global economic ranging from supplying goods to downturn - that unprecedented the Zimbabwe military regime to sums of money would be opened mining in the Democratic Republic up for aid and development of Congo’ [6]. Incidentally, it is in light of an opposition-led also these links, between the ANC, government in Zimbabwe, but this Zanu-PF and the South African is secondary and by no means the and Zimbabwean ruling class and driving motive behind MDC leader arms dealers like Bredenkamp and Morgan Tsvangirai’s ambitions Fana Hlongwane, alleged former for presidency. If it were then he advisor to late defence minister shouldn’t have a problem with Joe Modise, and their links to the cozying up to China, which also controversial arms deal in South provides assistance to Zimbabwe Africa, that kept former President - however dubious from the point Thabo Mbeki from speaking out of view of Zimbabwe’s indebtedness packages, not to mention a cheap labour against Mugabe during his years of ‘quiet to that country (although the same force, the movement of which has been diplomacy’ as SADC-appointed mediator applies concerning indebtedness to the all but crushed under Mugabe, and the between Tsvangirai and Mugabe. West) - in the forms of grants, loans natural resources Zimbabwe has to offer and humanitarian aid, such as cholera are very attractive to global investors. Power-Sharing or Power vaccines to the value of $500,000 after the Anglo-American, for example, has, Hungry? outbreak late in 2008 [3]. The difference despite external pressure from the British Stop-start power-sharing talks is that China refuses to join the chorus of government, indicated a willingness to between Mugabe and Tsvangirai, other world leaders calling for Mugabe to ‘invest an additional US$400 million to mediated by Thabo Mbeki, began on stand down, threatening a withholding or continue its control of platinum mines in 24 July 2008, and on 15 September an reduction of aid to Zimbabwe if he does Zimbabwe’ [4]. Despite its anti-imperialist agreement on forming a national unity not. If both the West, particularly the UK, rhetoric the Zimbabwean government government comprising of Mugabe, and China are both seemingly interested has been very accommodating of foreign Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, leader in developing the Zimbabwean economy capitalists, and has severely weakened of the MDC breakaway faction, was and providing humanitarian assistance workers’ rights and struggles in the signed. The agreement was to allow then why is it that Tsvangirai finds support mining and other sectors in order to for the sharing out of executive powers in the West and Mugabe in the East? attract their investment. This has proven between Mugabe and Tsvangirai, but soon The MDC has found support in the attractive to Chinese capitalists too as, reached deadlock once again, this time Western imperialist powers not because amongst other things, being a large over who would hold executive power and Tsvangirai too wants to open up channels producer and exporter of motor cars, the control of key ministries such as those of for emergency aid and development Chinese economy needs access to cheap defence, police and so-called correctional packages to enter the country, although platinum, which is used as a catalytic services. It fast became clear that Mugabe it is not suggested here that he doesn’t; converter in car engines. In 2008 the and his cronies are not willing to accept but because he is willing to implement Chinese government said it was keen to a genuine power sharing deal, nor was the neo-liberal ideology of the West. Thus invest in Zimbabwe’s gold and platinum Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC willing opening up new markets and giving the mining sectors [5]. to accept a junior position in a Zanu-PF West access to largely untapped natural China, in turn, supports Mugabe controlled administration in which they resources and a labour force that is and Zanu-PF not because it is ‘anti- would be unable to unlock the corridors probably willing to work for next-to-nothing imperialist’ and does not want the West to much-needed aid, economic and social if it means being able to withdraw that to have access to the hidden treasures reforms and investment, consequently measly amount from an ATM and using it of Zimbabwe, as well as to those of other opening the country up to the neo-liberal to buy bread without having to queue for African countries to which Zimbabwe world economy by accepting World Bank hours only to find, on reaching the front could provide a gateway, nor because and IMF loans to rebuild the economy of the queue, that inflation has devalued of a common Maoist background, but that would, ultimately, plunge Zimbabwe the amount you withdrew to the point because China, itself, is imperialist in into being a heavily indebted country. that you can no loner afford the bread for its own right and already has access to Although we anarchists would argue which it was withdrawn. Before the global some of these minerals and markets - for that no solution negotiated between financial crisis the West, particularly the example that of weapons - and, rather bourgeois politicians could ever truly Zabalaza page 16 southern africa benefit the poor of Zimbabwe in the long and the trade unions in the negotiations. ‘Military interventions exacerbate run, there is a claim, put forward by the This is because he does not want them political and socio-economic crises and International Crisis Group, that there to get a taste of what it is like to control internal differences with profoundly ‘is a possible negotiated way forward one’s own destiny, to have a say in the detrimental and destructive regional that could avoid Zimbabwe’s complete way that society is run because, were implications. We recognise that threats collapse’ but that it would require ‘a this to happen, civil society and the trade of military intervention come from radical shift in negotiating objectives by unions would undoubtedly want to be the country’s leaders and regional imperialist powers, and also through states’. The ‘core idea’ being, it their African proxies.’ [9] says, ‘to establish a transitional Zimbabweans who are desperate for administration, run by non-partisan change might hope for Western or African experts, in which neither Mugabe Union military intervention, but we know nor Tsvangirai would have any that any invaders would not only attack position. It would be mandated to Zanu-PF, but that many civilians would implement fundamental political be caught-up in the crossfire, as has and economic reforms to stabilise happened in Iraq and elsewhere, and that the economy and prepare new military intervention would be used only presidential elections in eighteen to establish a puppet regime sympathetic months’ [7]. Clearly a power-sharing deal to Western capitalism, and not to liberate in which Mugabe retains the ordinary Zimbabweans and give them presidency and Tsvangirai occupies control of their lives. Anti-imperialists the seat of prime minister is and anarchists should therefore oppose incapable of producing an outcome any military intervention by imperialist favourable to the Zimbabwean powers, but it is important that this not people, and any alternative that could increasingly involved in the policy-making be confused with support for the crass get rid of Mugabe and save Zimbabwe and running of a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe, anti-imperialism of the Robert Mugabe from complete collapse is favourable. and this is clearly unacceptable to regime, and that they continue to As has been demonstrated, however, someone with an anti-worker, anti-poor staunchly oppose and criticise him and both sides party to the negotiations are neo-liberal agenda. It is better that his allies. more concerned with how the outcome they remain accustomed to sitting back will effect themselves and, in the case helplessly while the government sets As noted by Horace Campbell: of both MDCs, their political careers than policy and makes decisions as to the ‘Instead of oversimplifying imperialist they are with how they could influence future of the country. Such concerns were threats in Zimbabwe, those who want the negotiations to the benefit of the raised by the Zimbabwean Congress of to see the demilitarisation of Africa people, and this is why they have resisted Trade Unions [8] that, must aggressively support the exposure proposals such as that put forward by the ‘there has not been openness and of the arms deals that have linked Crisis Group. Mugabe and his allies in the wider consultation on the drafting of the Bredenkamp and Fana Hlongwane [...] upper echelons of state and, particularly MoU [Memorandum of Unity]. On behalf across the politics of repression in South military power, are concerned with what of labour, the MoU has not been availed Africa and Zimbabwe. The British arms will be their fate should they be dethroned; to us for scrutiny or comment. The only manufacturer British Aerospace (BAe) whether they will be called to answer for time we have had a feel of the MoU, has has been involved with Bredenkamp and the crimes against humanity of which they been through the media, where we are are guilty. Tsvangirai is concerned with told that MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai Hlongwane in Africa, along with corrupt how he can take power, implement some had at one time refused to sign it. elements in the Middle East. There have needed reforms and unlock the Western Nothing more has been said about the been calls for BAe to be prosecuted under aid and humanitarian intervention document. the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) earmarked for a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe, The process seems to have been left of the USA. thus further establishing himself as the to the three antagonizing parties, that is, Such an investigation would have good guy who saved Zimbabwe while, at the MDC – T, the MDC – M and Zanu-PF’. potentially seismic consequences the same time, making sure that the poor Similarly, as was noted in a SADC for military contractors and arms and working poor of Zimbabwe do not Civil Society Statement on Zimbabwe on manufacturers and would provide another become in any way empowered by the the Memorandum of Unity, ‘the process means of opposing Western militarism in transition from dictatorship to bourgeois lacks inclusivity, [is] insensitive to gender Africa.’ democracy to the extent that they may equity and balance, [is] undermined by begin to make demands of him and his He goes on to say that if activists and administration that are not within the continued militarisation of the country, others were, spectrum of his plans for neo-liberalising lacks transparency and accountability ‘to expose the linkages between the Zimbabwean economy. processes’. Zanu-PF arms dealers John Bredenkamp Nowhere is this more evident than and Fana Hlongwane along with the the manner in which both factions “Operation Zimbabwe wider linkages to international capital, of the MDC consistently side-lined or Freedom”? then it would be clear that it is quite an ignored Zimbabwean civil society in In light of this apparent impossibility for oversimplification to argue that Zidera is a negotiated way out of the crisis, where the negotiations towards a power- at the centre of Zimbabwe’s problems. the only thing the antagonising parties sharing deal and the drafting of a new Bredenkamp had been schooled from Constitution. Mugabe obviously is not can agree on is that the Zimbabwean the Smith era to blame everything on interested in democracy and popular people must not be empowered by participation, so it should come as no the process, some people, including sanctions while beating the sanctions surprise that he and Zanu-PF would not Zimbabweans, have called for military with the help of apartheid South Africa. consult trade unions and civil society intervention to oust Mugabe. While it In the present period Bredenkamp is on the process of power-sharing. But seems to many that there may be little an ally of the ANC, Zanu-PF and British Tsvangirai, on the other hand, makes all alternative, the detrimental effects of imperialist arms manufacturers like BAe the pretenses towards caring about the military intervention were correctly noted all at the same time.’ popular will and democracy, but has done by a group of African scholars, stating little to nothing to involve civil society that: Zabalaza page 17 southern africa The Struggle Aborted light of the cholera outbreak and the so- that they now have a ‘comrade on the - Towards a Libertarian called breakthrough in the power-sharing inside’, sit back and wait for change from negotiations, to immediately establish above. After a few years, however, as it Communist Alternative organs for popular participation in policy- becomes increasingly clear to the people Disregarding the possibility of foreign making and the drafting of constitutional that Tsvangirai is unable to effect change military intervention, then, the problem amendments such from within a Mugabe- with what the Crisis Group and SADC civil as neighbourhood or led administration, society argue for with the notion of the popular assemblies, and the pro-capitalist transitional authority, which they say workers’ councils and policies of Tsvangirai’s should be an ‘impartial party [...] headed students’, women’s and MDC - or whomsoever by an individual who is not a member youth organisations that assumes the reigns of of Zanu-PF or MDC’ [10] is that it still can collectively discuss capitalist rule after the promotes the idea of one-man political what they want for Unity Government - leadership, the worst manifestation Zimbabwe and organise are unable to deliver, of which, dictatorship, is exactly what to put pressure on the new movements will Zimbabwe is trying to rid itself of. Unity Government to emerge, as they did Although they do say that ‘a broad have their demands in South Africa, to put sector of Zimbabwean society should met. pressure on the new be incorporated into the transitional In the last analysis, government to make authority, including representatives from the MDC has not taken good on its promises. labour, women’s and children’s rights office in the way in The establishment of groups, churches, and other interest which the ANC, or for popular assemblies groups’ their conception of the transitional that matter Hamas did. and workers’ councils authority is still rooted in the hierarchical, Tsvangirai and company now could provide top-down political structures of bourgeois have been co-opted into the foundation for democracy, and does little to nothing to an unchanged regime in the same way in these new social movements, most ensure the maximum participation of which Joshua Nkomo’s Zimbabwe African likely centered around issues of service working class and poor people and foster People’s Union (Zapu) was co-opted by delivery and the immediate material a real culture of direct democracy and Zanu-PF before being swallowed whole. needs of the popular classes, and could participation. Rather than experimenting Tsvangirai’s entrance into a Mugabe-led determine the character they take; the with new methods of collective self- administration is like Nelson Mandela more people get accustomed to popular governance, the transitional authority is accepting a post in PW Botha’s cabinet - democracy and participation now, the to ‘govern the country until the newly a farce, foolish to the extreme and bound more likely will the social movements of elected government is installed’. What to end very badly indeed for Mandela. the future embody the libertarian and is needed in Zimbabwe is not a ‘civilian This is not the usually disappointing horizontal spirit vital for the successful authority’ that can lead the country to outcome of a pro-democracy movement overthrow of the capitalist system of free and fair elections - as much as that - a victory over a very authoritarian which both the dictatorship of Mugabe would be preferable to what exists now regime, but a new ruling party unable or and the bourgeois democracy of the MDC - but genuine and permanent people’s unwilling to make fundamental social and and ANC are a symptom. self-governance, through the federation economic changes or to accommodate The difference between South Africa of popular assemblies and workers’ more democracy than the ballot - but and Zimbabwe, however, lies in the fact councils. an aborted pro-democracy struggle. The that there has not been a transition to The ruling class in South Africa and spin-off of this is that, as was the case democracy in the latter, that the struggle Zimbabwe, on both sides of the political in South Africa after Nelson Mandela rose for democracy has been aborted by its divide, is keen to find a solution to the to power in 1994, and as will probably leader, who has now been co-opted current impasse in order to stabilise be the case when Jacob Zuma assumes into the regime he fought against. The the situation so that the exploitation of the presidency later this year, there will challenge for revolutionaries and the the Zimbabwean working people can be a honeymoon period in Zimbabwe in popular classes in Zimbabwe, then, is continue unabated, no longer under the wake of the power-sharing deal. This to keep the democratic struggle alive the spotlight of world media and NGOs. period may well be characterised by a and to link it with the struggles for The popular classes of Zimbabwe must general decline in workers’ militancy service delivery, development and the take advantage of the current situation, and popular struggles as people, feeling demilitarisation of society. where there is a focus on Zimbabwe in Notes: 1. See FdCA article on Chinese and Russian Imperialism, page 32 2. See ZACF statement on Chinese weapons shipment to Zimbabwe, http://www.anarkismo.net/article/8660 3. China Considers Humanitarian Aid for Zimbabwe, http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2008-12/2008-12-09-voa10.cfm?CFID=936640 14&CFTOKEN=76226223&jsessionid=6630983f2370a06417a7405f3c147d133860 4. How Britain put the finger on Hlongwane, Published:Nov 30, 2008, The Times, http://www.thetimes.co.za/PrintEdition/News/Article. aspx?id=895127 5. Chinese keen to invest in Zimbabwe gold, platinum mining, http://www.miningweekly.com/article.php?a_id=128133 6. Horace Campbell (2008-12-18), Mamdani, Mugabe and the African scholarly community - The Africanisation of exploitation, http://www. pambazuka.org/en/category/features/52845 (Campbell is Professor of African American Studies and Political Science at Syracuse University). 7. A Way Forward for Zimbabwe – International Crisis Group, http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=3535&l=1&gclid=COKVsqbZ6Jc CFRpnQgodvG2fDg60 8. ZCTU press release, 21 July 2008, W.T Chibebe, Secretary-General 9. Horace Campbell (2008-12-18), Mamdani, Mugabe and the African scholarly community - The Africanisation of exploitation, http://www. pambazuka.org/en/category/features/52845 10. A Way Forward for Zimbabwe – International Crisis Group, http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=3535&l=1&gclid=COKVsqbZ6J cCFRpnQgodvG2fDg60 Zabalaza page 18 africa

The Anarchist Movement in north A“ frica:” 1877 - 1951 by lucien van der walt & michael schmidt (zacf)

The history of the broad anarchist on workers to celebrate the anniversary in numerous worker demonstrations tradition in North Africa has yet to be of the 1871 . In 1901, in Alexandria and Istanbul. They both written, and must therefore be pieced an anarchist paper entitled La Tribune helped establish anarcho-syndicalist together from a wide variety of sources. Libre (The Free Tribune) was also being trade unions in Greece including the Modern, developed Egypt was – and still published in Alexandria. In Alexandria, syndicalist minority within the General is – largely confined by its desert wastes an Italian-language anarchist weekly, Workers’ Confederation of Greece (GSEE) to a narrow fertile funnel embracing the l’Operaio (The Worker) began publishing in 1918 capital of Cairo on the Nile River and the [4]. Nile delta port cities of Alexandria and in 1902 and ran until the following Although these cases are not Port Said. Originally part of the Ottoman year. In 1904, the Arabic-language necessarily representative, they do Empire, it became an autonomous radical journal al-Nur (The Light) was indicate that anarchists were involved Ottoman province under the dynasty established in Alexandria by Daud in founding racially integrated unions of Mohammed Ali from 1805, but the Muja‘is, the Syrian-Lebanese editor of in colonial Egypt. The evidence for opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 proved al-Hurriyya (Freedom) of Beirut (1909- anarchist activity for subsequent too much of a temptation for imperialist 1910?). According to Khuri-Makdisi [3], years is less clear. Bearing in mind the Britain, which occupied the country in al-Nur had a correspondent in Cairo, was possible mistranslation of ‘syndicalist,’ in 1882. In “Egypt and Tunis,” Max Nettlau published until 1908, increasingly took academic studies, and the misapplication argues, “Italian Anarchist émigrés and an anarchist line and had subscribers of the term ‘anarchist’ in official records, refugees were for many years the life and among the Syrian-Lebanese Diaspora it is possible to find mentions of spirit of libertarian activity,” but he adds little other material in either his Short as far afield as Haiti and Brazil – one of subsequent activity. Investigations into , or, indeed, the the best examples of the extent of North the assassination of the Egyptian Prime section on North Africa in his ten-volume African anarchist influence. Minister, Butrus Ghali in February 1910, study of anarchist history [1]. Spain often The Italian-language Cronaca for example, revealed the existence of a used its territories in the Sahara and the Sovversiva (Subversive Chronicles), number of secret societies, including one Canary Islands as penal colonies for its published in Vermont, United States from splinter group, founded in 1908, based dissidents: it was here, for example, that 1903 onwards by Luigi Galleani, reached on both Sufism – a mystical form of Islam both Durruti and Ascaso were imprisoned ‘far beyond the confines of the United – and ‘Syndicalism’. In 1919, Viscount in 1932. A range of other materials have States’ including North Africa and Egypt. Allenby of the British administration in been drawn together by Van der Walt, Italian radicals played a key role in founding Egypt noted in his records that ‘while whose notes are incorporated here [2]. the labour movement in Egypt, forming a the nationalist movement had lost some An Italian anarchist journal, Il People’s Free University in Alexandria in of its strength the syndicalist movement Lavoratore (The Labourer), began 1901, and activists associated with the was growing, with secret support from printing in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1877, and University and Le Tribune Libre appear Italian journalists. A curiosity in this Alexandrian anarchists were represented to have been amongst those involved in period was the production in 1921 of at the 1877 Verviers Congress of the Saint- founding ‘international’ unions in early a French-Egyptian silent film called Imier International. Malatesta himself fled 20th Century Egypt. Most notable was the Aziz Bey, l’Anarchiste, the existence of to Alexandria in September 1878, but was International League of Cigarette Workers which is noted in the list of anarchist- deported when Italian workers organised and Millers of Cairo in 1908, ‘open to themed films compiled in 2004 by the a demonstration outside the Italian workers of all nationalities, Egyptians International Centre for Research into consulate to applaud an assassination as well as foreigners,’ and apparently Anarchism (CIRA) in Switzerland [5]. attempt against Italian King Umberto I by including ‘production workers other than The mere creation of a film about an a republican. He represented an ‘Egyptian the skilled rollers.’ Other examples of Egyptian anarchist, fictional or not, Federation’ at the 1881 International integrated labour solidarity existed. A suggests the presence and influence of Social Revolutionary Congress of the meeting in 1901 in support of striking anarchist ideas in Egyptian society at anarchists, with a mandate from ‘bodies garment workers (including Egyptians) that stage. While the Egyptian socialist from and Alexandria.’ in a Cairo café included a speech by the movement seems to have been eclipsed Malatesta returned to Egypt in 1882, – president of the cigarette rollers’ craft by nationalism in the 1920s and 1930s, the year the country was invaded by the union, and a reading of the workers’ it revived in the 1940s. The years 1942-5 British – where he appears to have been demands in Arabic as well as Greek, saw the establishment of various socialist involved in the ‘Pasha revolt’ that broke Italian, Hebrew and German. This was groups in Egypt, including one ‘under the out that year, and which was suppressed followed by a march of 3,000 chanting syndicalist leader Mudarak.’ by British forces. In 1884, the paper La workers through Cairo. What is interesting Algeria, under French rule from 1830, Question Sociale (The Social Question) is that European cigarette workers living was also a site of anarchist activity. A appeared in Egypt. In 1877, the journal in Egypt were radicalised by the likes of range of anarchist journals were published L’Operaia (The Worker), appeared in th the Egyptian syndicalists and returned to in Algiers at the end of the 19 Century, Tunis, followed in 1881 by the Italian including L’Action Revolutionnaire Europe to spread anarchist ideas there. anarchist journal Imola (Inflame), (Revolutionary Action) (1887), Le Tocsin Two notable examples of this are the published by Andrea Costa, and another, (The Alarm) (1890), (The anarcho-syndicalist Konstantinos “Kostas” La Protesta Humana (Human Protest) was Libertarian) (1892) and La Marmite Speras (1893-1943) and the anarchist- subsequently published in the city before Sociale (The Social Cauldron) (1893). communist Stavros Kouchtsoglous (1878- relocating to Italy in 1896. According to Anderson, by 1894, Jean 1949). Both were radicalised in Egypt and Grave’s influential anarchist-communist The Egyptian newspaper al-Hilal (The returned to Greece to become the leading La Révolte (Revolt) had subscribers as Crescent) reported on 18 March 1894 that lights in the revolutionary trade union far afield as Algeria and Egypt, while a Greek worker was arrested in Alexandria movement there. Speras was fluent in Emile Pouget’s anarcho-insurrectionist for distributing ‘anarchist leaflets’ calling Arabic and Kouchtsoglous was involved Le Pére Peinard (The Toiling Father) Zabalaza page 19 africa had subscribers in Algeria and Tunisia, Another key Algerian anarchist was although not regularly, because we the latter a former Ottoman province Albert Guigui-Theral (1903-?), who do not have sufficient funds.’ This was that became a French protectorate in was born in Algeria, but raised in Paris, ‘distributed inside Portugal, as well as in 1881 [6]. Fernand Pelloutier’s 1895 returning to Algeria in 1918 where he the Azores, Africa and Oceania.’ Although Anarchism and the Workers Unions … worked as a mechanic, but became the Spanish state used territories in North mentions that anarchists had become involved in a series of metalworkers’ Africa for penal purposes, North Africa increasingly active in “many trade strikes and was jailed for distributing was also a haven for anarchist militants unions”, including those in Algiers. The anarchist propaganda [8]. In 1922, and refugees. Julio Sánchez Ortiz draws anarchist Victor Barroucand published a after a failed attempt to establish a attention to the role played by Tangiers daily called Les Nouvelles (The New) in phalanstery in Algeria, Guigui-Theral in Morocco, which was an international Algiers in the first decade of the 20th moved back to Paris where he lost a protectorate in the early 20th Century Century: its most famous correspondent series of jobs because of his anarchist … After the defeat of the Spanish was Isabelle Eberhardt (1877-1904), the activities, but became active in the Revolution, and with the outbreak of the Swiss-Ukrainian dockworker/adventurer/ CGT’s Metal Federation where he fought Second World War, Tangiers, which had writer whose father had been a friend of against the growing Stalinist influence. formerly been an international city, came Bakunin. The syndicalist successor of the From 1928, he began contributing to Le under the control of the dictator Franco, French General Confederation of Labour Libertaire, and briefly travelled to the and there was a massive crackdown on (CGT), the CGT - Revolutionary Syndicalist USA, returning to France in 1932 where the left and labour in that city. Many (CGT-SR) apparently operated a section he worked in the Paris region of the CGT fled to Casablanca in Algeria… Exiled in Algeria. Like the other French anarchist assisting the Spanish syndicalists. He was Italian anarchists, like Celso Persici, were organisations, the CGT-SR opposed French arrested for his activities in June 1940, as involved in the anti-Nazi resistance in colonialism. Thus, a joint statement by France succumbed to Nazi rule, but was Morocco during the Second World War, the Anarchist Union, the CGT-SR, and released and escaped to the “free zones”, as Vertice Persici notes.” According the Association of to José Peirats, Anarchist Federations Roque Santamaria denounced the C o r t i g u e r a centenary of the represented exile French occupation organisations from of Algeria in 1930, North Africa at a 1947 arguing ‘Civilisation? intercontinental Progress? We say: congress of the exile murder!’. Spanish anarchist A prominent movement in militant in the CGT- Toulouse, France SR’s Algerian section, [9]. as well as in the A handful of Anarchist Union was Ethiopians fought Saïl Mohamed (1894- on the Republican 1953), an Algerian side in the Spanish anarchist active in the Revolution, while anarchist movement Saïl Mohamed from the 1910s until and other North his death in 1953 [7]. Africans fought in Although resident the Durruti Column in Paris and Aulnay- anarchist militia. sous-bois for much Many Spanish of his life, Mohamed anarchists fled from was a founder of the defeat of the organisations such Revolution into exile as the Association Sail Mohammed, in the centre of the front row, with other in Algeria, where for the Rights of North African ‘Durruti Column’ militiamen. they established the Indigenous an exile community Algerians and the Anarchist Group of joining the Maquis resistance under Jean in the city of Oran. From 1939 onwards, the Indigenous Algerians with Sliman Moulin, working with the Clandestine however, Spanish Morocco and Western Kiouane in 1923, organised meetings CGT in trying to get aid from General Sahara remained under the control of on the colonial exploitation of North in London, and with the new Spanish regime, while fascist Africans in both French and Arabic, the International Labour Organisation Portugal controlled the Azores, Cape and was the secretary of the anarchist (ILO) in Philadelphia, USA. Returning to Verde, Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé and ‘Algerian Defence Committee Against the Paris among the city’s Spanish anarchist Principe in West Africa from 1927 until Provocations of the Centenary’ in 1929. liberators in 1944, Guigui-Theral later 1974. Ethiopia, Libya and Somaliland Saïl Mohamed was also editor of the North worked for the ILO in Geneva. remained under Italian Fascist rule from African edition of the anarchist periodical Portuguese anarchists also played a 1935 until roughly 1942, while Nazi- Terre Libre (Free Earth), all copies of role in disseminating libertarian ideas in linked Vichy France controlled Algeria which have, sadly, been lost. Jailed on North Africa. Some idea of the scope of and much of west and equatorial Africa numerous occasions, Saïl Mohamed was activities may be gleaned from a report until it progressively lost these territories also a contributor to anarchist journals in early 1936, prepared by the Iberian as the Second World War wore on. Saïl such as L’Eveil Social, and La Voix Anarchist Federation (FAI)-affiliated Mohamed became an identity document Libertaire (The Libertarian Voice), often Anarchist Federation of Portugal. The forger for the underground anti-fascist on the Algerian question, and fought as report noted that, ‘The Portuguese resistance in Vichy France during the a volunteer in the international section Federation entered a new phase in March Second World War. In the war, many of the Durruti Column … in the Spanish 1935.’ It ‘established relations with nuclei Spanish republicans, including anarchists, Revolution. The international group of the of comrades in Spain, France, Brazil, served in the Long Range Desert Group Durruti Column included ‘400 Frenchmen, Argentina, the United States, French and other special forces in North Africa. Germans, Italians, Britishers, Moroccans Africa, Portuguese Africa, and Morocco,’ Republicans who had joined the French and Americans’. and was publishing ‘our journal, Rebellion, Foreign Legion in exchange from being Zabalaza page 20 africa released from the detention camps in taken part in the anarchist uprising in Amsterdam International and maintained southern France. Many of them were 1933 alongside Durruti and Isaac Puente, a network of correspondence between stationed in North Africa, Cameroon and and rose to become the leading anarchist organisations, journals and individual Chad when the war broke out. The 9th military strategist during the Revolution. militants in Argentina, Australia (League Armoured Company – known as El Nueve Mera also fled to Oran in 1939, and was for Freedom), Bolivia, Brazil, Britain – had been founded in Chad as part of the likewise interned in Morand but escaped (Anarchist Federation of Britain), Bulgaria Regiments of March of Chad. to Morocco. However, Mera was arrested (the exiled Bulgarian Libertarian Union in The 9th Armoured Company drove there in March 1941 and deported to France), Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, tanks and armoured half-tracks flying the Spain where he was sentenced to death Cuba, Ecuador, France (Francophone Spanish Republican flag and with names (he was later released and lived in Paris Anarchist Federation, Revolutionary redolent of the Spanish Revolution painted the rest of his life, dying in 1975). What Anarchist Action Groups, and the IWA), on their sides: “Durruti”, “Ascaso”, “Casa role, if any, these exiles played in the Germany, Guatemala, India, Israel, Viejas”, “Teruel”, “”, “Belchite”, 1945 uprising in Algeria, is not known to Italy (Italian Anarchist Federation, “Guadalajara” and “Guernica”. It us, but Santamaria stayed on in Algeria, GAAP Filosofo, GAR-FAI and Umanita included libertarian fighters like Nova), Japan (Japanese Anarchist Abenza Jesus, who had fought on the Federation), Korea (Korean Anarchist Madrid front, but had been trapped Movement), Mexico, the Netherlands and unable to cross into France until (Vrijheid), North Africa (the North 1941. Imprisoned in the Argeles African Libertarian Movement of concentration camp, then deported Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia), to Algeria, Jesus volunteered with Panama, Peru, Portugal, Spain the French Africa Corps, fought in (Libertarian Movement in Exile and Tunisia, then joined what became National Confederation of Labour), the Chad Marching Division that Sweden, Switzerland (Swiss Romande fought Rommel’s Afrika Korps before Anarchist Movement), Uruguay, the being sent to England to train for United States (Libertarian League, the Normandy invasion. Jesus and El Free Voice of Labor, Resistance, and Nueve hit the beaches at Normandy Cultura Proletaria), Venezuela, and on the night of July 31/August 1, 1944, Yugoslavia. The CRIA held its first as one of two armoured divisions in congress in Paris in 1949 and at its the US 3rd Army that defeated three congress in London in 1958, it joined SS Panzer divisions and linked up with the Provisional Secretariat on with the Canadian forces at Falais – International Relations (SPIRA) and at the same time as some 30,000 was transformed into the Anarchist Maquis took up arms in Brittany – International Commission which before pushing on to Paris where the survived until about 1960 but laid anarchists became the first “Allied the groundwork for the International troops” to liberate the city on 24 of Anarchist Federations (IAF) August 1944 [10]. established in 1968. The Italian conquest of Libya, It is the North African Libertarian and the Nazi victory over half of Movement (MLAN) that intrigues France had been followed by the us here. It appears from CRIA suppression of the left in North Cipriano Mera Sanz, anarchist military correspondence in the immediate Africa. By 1939, it seems clear that strategist during the Spanish Revolution post-war period [13] that the MLAN the anarchist tradition had largely was a French-speaking organisation withered away in Egypt, but remained acting as the secretary of the CNT’s with close ties to the strong anarchist extant in Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria, North African branch until he travelled movement on the French mainland, and with its links to the CGT-SR and the work to Toulouse, France, in 1946 to represent was divided into a Moroccan Section, an of activists like Saïl Mohamed, and the North Africa at the MLE’s Intercontinental Algerian Section, and a Tunisian Section. existence of communities of foreign Congress the following year. He stayed It seems that the Algerian Section was, anarchists such as the Spanish exiles in on in Toulouse, however, becoming the from 2 September 1947, recognised as the city of Oran. Among these exiles was city’s FAI secretary in 1948-1950, helping the “13th Region” of the Paris-based Roque Santamaria Cortiguera (?-1980), to reunite the revolutionary and reformist Francophone Anarchist Federation (FAF). a CNT-FIJL (National Confederation of CNT factions in 1960/1, helping re- The Tunisian Section, appears to have Labour-Iberian Federation of Libertarian establish the CNT in Spain after Franco’s started life as the Tunisian Libertarian Youth) barber who had sat on the Council death. Movement (MLT) and later also become of during the Revolution, and In May 1948, at a pan-European a FAF affiliate after correspondence with who fled to Oran after the Francoist anarchist conference in Paris, the Anarchist Georges Fontenis. The MLT apparently victory in 1939. He is described by Stuart International Relations Commission initially shied away from affiliation to Christie as “a militant of great merit, with (CRIA) was established by, among others, the Algerian Section because of the particular strengths as a public speaker Parisian anarchist bookstore owner, former differences in the colonial administrations and polemicist and well versed in matters Friends of Durruti supporter and editor under which each suffered. The Moroccan organisational” [11]. The ascension of Le Libertaire, André Prudhommeaux Section is not mentioned in the CRIA of Vichy France saw Santamaria (and (1902-1968), Ildefonso Gonzalez, Renée correspondence but presumably was no doubt many other Oran anarchists) Lamberet of the International Workers based in the French-colonised Atlantic incarcerated in the concentration Association, Clément Fournier, Jules Ocean ports of Casablanca and Rabat camps of Cerchel and Morand, where Pulidori and René Cavanhié, with the aim and not in the Francoist-occupied Santamaria co-ordinated National of maintaining ties between the dispersed Mediterranean ports of Ceuta and Melilla. Confederation of Labour (CNT) , and rather battered, but still vibrant In its first manifesto, Doukhan, secretary of being released in November 1942 after post-war anarchist movement [12]. the MLAN’s Algerian Section, announced the Allied forces took Oran. Another key CRIA established a sister organisation that the principles of the MLAN’s Algerian Spanish anarchist who spent time in in Latin America, the Montevideo-based Section were: “For economic and racial North Africa was the legendary Cipriano Continental Commission of Anarchist equality and the establishment of Mera Sanz (1897-1975), a bricklayer Relations (CCRA). The CRIA saw itself libertarian communism,” a “harmonious illiterate until the age of 20 who had as continuing the work of the 1907 society based on solidarity, mutual aid, co- Zabalaza page 21 africa

operation and ,” and opposed intriguing suggestion, apparently raised movement. The FAI was re-established itself to “patrimonial feudal colonialism,” by exiled “Spanish comrades” of the FAI, in Iberia after the Carnation Revolution racism, war and imperialism. It appears that the MLAN fuse with the FAI forces in Portugal in 1974 (provoked by the to be a carbon-copy of the FAF’s liberation wars in Portugal’s African positions. That was a tall order, for an colonies and precipitating Portuguese undated CRIA document on the parlous decolonisation) and the death of Franco circumstances in which the MLAN found in Spain in 1975 and continues to this itself noted that the Algerian Section day. In 1953, the year that Mohamed consisted of only “three comrades in died and Fontenis gave the oration Algiers, and several comrades dispersed at his funeral, Fontenis’ platformist and isolated in the bled (the small- faction within the FAF, the Thought town countryside)”. Nevertheless, Battle Organisation (OPB), took over the Algerian Section embarked on a the FAF, renamed it the Libertarian definition of its principles and tactics, Communist Federation (FCL) and a possible sign of the hands of Fontenis adopted a pro-Algerian liberation line. and Prudhommeaux in shaping the The synthesist remnant reconstituted North African movement. the FAF. Morocco and Tunisia gained In 1950, Doukhan wrote to the CRIA independence in 1956 and some Secretariat in Paris from the MLAN anarchists of European origin may office at No.6 Rue du Rousillon, Algiers, well have stayed. But the situation in saying that the Algerian Section had Algeria quickly spiralled out of control been legalised by the authorities on 31 into all-out warfare. What became of March. As a result, the MLAN in Algeria the anarchists in Oran, Algiers and the was demanding its right to autonomy bled is unknown to us, but it is likely from the FAF and on its right to register that many were either killed or fled to in its own name as an affiliate of “the France, especially after France’s loss of Anarchist Organisations” – presumably Algeria as a colony in 1962 following the CRIA [14]. In April 1951, a letter the Oran Massacre of that year. We was written to the MLAN in Algiers from will examine the anarchist responses “R. Cavan” of the CRIA in Paris. Cavan George Fontenis, first secretary of the to decolonisation in Africa and South- was in fact René Cavanhié who also French Fédération Anarchiste East Asia – especially the very different sat on the FAF’s national committee attitudes of the FCL and the FAF – in a and he asked about activities on “the in North Africa. The CRIA archives retain future edition of Zabalaza. Spanish coast,” indicated concern that no further letters between the MLAN and the group in Oran had not been heard the CRIA, suggesting that this merger of in some time, but supposed the MLAN did, in fact, take place and that the MLAN was still working together with “the Tunis thus became part of the FAI and so of group”. Revealed in this letter is the the broader libertarian exile resistance

NOTES: 1. A Short History of Anarchism, Max Nettlau, Freedom Press, London, UK, 1996, First Published 1934. 2. This piece and Lucien’s notes are an edited extract from Global Fire: 150 Fighting Years of International Anarchism & Syndicalism (Counter- power Vol.2), Michael Schmidt & Lucien van der Walt, AK Press, USA, [in process, but possibly to be published in 2010]. For brief introductions to the history of anarchism in parts of North Africa, look at Stiobhard’s work at: a) Algeria: http://stiobhard.tripod.com/east/algeria.html b) Tunisia: http://stiobhard.tripod.com/east/tunisia.html c) Egypt: http://stiobhard.tripod.com/east/egypt/html 3. Levantine Trajectories: The Formulation and Dissemination of Radical Ideas in and between Beirut, Cairo and Alexandria 1860-1914, Ilham Khuri-Makdisi, Harvard University, 2003. 4. a) Konstantinos Speras: the Life and Activities of a Greek Anarcho-Syndicalist, Leonardis Kottis, Libertarian Historical Archive and Vivliopelagus Editions, , Greece, 2001, translated into English in 2005 by James Sotros. b) Stavros Kouchtsoglous – a Greek Anarchist Communist, James Sotros, 2009. 5. Anarchists on Screen 1901-2003, CIRA Bulletin 60, International Centre for Research into Anarchism, Lausanne, Spring 2004. 6. Under Three Flags: Anarchism and the Anti-Colonial Immagination, Benedict Anderson, Verso, London, UK, and New York, USA, 2005. 7. Mohamed, Saïl (1894-1953), Organise! #58, Anarchist Federation, UK, online at: http://libcom.org/history/mohamed-sail-1894-1953 A collection of Mohamed’s writings from the 1920s-1950s is available in Appels aux Travailleurs Algériens, Saïl Mohammed, Groupe Fresnes- Antony, France, Federation Anarchiste, 1994. 8. Albert Guigi-Theral (1903-??), anonymous, online at: http://www.libcom.org/history/articles/1903-19/index.php 9. Anarchists in the Spanish Revolution, José Peirats, Freedom Press, London, 1990. First published 1951-1953. The source here is the Appendix to this work, printed by Black & Red, Detroit, Michigan, USA, 1993. 10. For various accounts of the actions of El Nueve in the liberation of Paris, look at: a) The Spaniards who Liberated Paris, Denis Fernandez Recatala, Le Monde Diplomatique, August 2004, cached online at: http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:VJaIlXrvQZkJ:mondediplo.com/2004/08/13spaniards +El+Nueve+liberation+Paris&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=za b) 2nd Armoured Division, John Beresford Welsh, Washington DC, USA, 2000, online at: http://www.angelfire.com/wa2/FJ6/French2nd.html c) 1943-1944: CNT Militants and the Liberation of Paris, anonymous, but including the reminiscences of 9th Tank Corps veterans Abenza Jesus and Manuel Lozano, online at: http://www.libcom.org/history/articles/cnt-militants-lib-paris/index.php 11. Granny Made Me an Anarchist: General Franco, the Angry Brigade and Me, Stuart Christie, Scribner, UK, 2004. Also, discussions in 2008 between Michael Schmidt and Christie. 12. CIRA Bulletin 64, International Centre for Research into Anarchism, Lausanne, September 2008. 13. CRIA-MLAN correspondence 1947-1951, very kindly provided to the ZACF by Fréderic Deshusses, archivist, CRIA International Centre for Research into Anarchism, 2008. 14. The original French text reads in part: “C’est a la occasion de la legalisation du M.L.A.N. (seccion Algerienne) par les pouvoir publics em date du 31 Mars 1950 seus le No. 4.189 et de sa constitution et autonomie par rapport au le F.A.F. a laquelle nous appartemiens en tant que 13e Region du 2 September 1947 jusq’au 31 Mars 1950 que nous avans la satisfaction de vous demander: - de nous assigner s’il y a lieu, la tache qui nous correspond afin de collaborer a meme titre que les Organisations Anarchistes adherentes.” Zabalaza page 22 africa / international

socialists & gaullists haunted by the ghosts of genocide (rwanda) by Guillaume Davranche (Alternative Libertaire), France The arrest of Rwandan Rose Kabuye, Foreign Office remain committed to Kigali Puts a Stick in Paris’ the collapse of Bruguière’s case and revisionist theories on the interpretation Spokes Hubert Védrine’s court action against the of genocide. On 9 November, the RPF sorted «Génocide made in France» collective... In reality, it is unlikely that out Paris, allowing one of its leaders, Rose is the truth finally coming out? Habyarimana was assassinated by the Kabuye, to be arrested. Rose Kabuye will Fourteen years after the events, RPF, which had no interest in doing spend some time behind bars so as to the French State has been unable to shake so, since the despot was having to force Judge Bruguière to trip himself up. off the ghost of the Rwandan genocide make significant concessions towards Back on 13 November Abdul Ruzibiza, and its laborious attempts to clear its a peaceful settlement of the civil war. one of his key witnesses, withdrew stating name are failing miserably. The current These concessions were, however, that he had made up the story of an RPF Rwandan government has never forgiven hard to swallow for the Hutu Power commando shooting down the Falcon 50. Paris for having armed, supported and hardliners who wanted to spark off So the file is empty. France will make a protected the right-wing Hutu regime the «apocalypse», to use the words of fool of itself. which sank in 1994 in an orgy of blood, Colonel Théoneste Bagosora, one of the Every government from 1975 destruction and the extermination of a masterminds of the genocide. The most to 1994 - centrist, Gaullist or Socialist million Tutsis and political opponents. Paris likely theory is that Habyarimana was - supported what the historian Jean- has never admitted its responsibility and considered too soft and was eliminated. Pierre Chrétien has called «tropical even provoked Kigali in 2006 by ordering The missile that struck the presidential Nazism». When will they recognize it? international arrest warrants against nine plane on 6 April was fired from an area How will they try to explain it away? On Tutsi leaders of the Rwandan Patriotic controlled by the Rwandan army and 28 November 2007, the Génocide made Front (RPF, in power), at the request of not by the RPF and less than one hour in France collective sprayed Socialist Judge Jean-Louis Bruguière. What were later the right-wing militias began the Hubert Védrine with red food dye. At the they accused of? Of having shot down massacres. In any event, the attack on time of the genocide, he was Secretary the plane of the extreme right-wing Hutu April 6 should not lead us to be unable General of the President’s Office and the president Juvénal Habyarimana on 6 April to see wood for the trees. The genocide collective accused him of «complicity». At 1994. Following that, the genocide of was planned, the weapons were ready, the trial, Védrine prudently abandoned his Tutsis began «in retaliation». The result: militias trained, the «lists» established. claim for defamation, which had led to an the Tutsi leaders would at least be jointly New light on the attack cannot call into investigation into his true responsibility, responsible for the genocide of Tutsis! question the intent of the «final solution and contented himself with a symbolic Both Judge Bruguière and the French to the Tutsi problem». award of 1 Euro for damages. jalan journal: a new asian anarchist voice is born introduction by michael schmidt (zacf) Because of its unmatched radical stance on race, imperialism and colonialism, the anarchist / syndicalist movement established a powerful presence in several countries of the Far East in the early decades of the 20th Century: in particular China which suffered the depredations of warlordism and European land grabs, where it formed the first trade unions in the port of Canton (now Guangzhou) in 1913, established significant syndicalist unions such as the Hunan Workers’ Association and other affiliates of the Confederation of Labour Unions in the industrial heartlands, and surviving in numbers some 10,000 strong at the time of the Maoist take-over in 1949; Korea which resisted Japanese imperialism, especially in the Korean Anarchist Communist Federation’s and Korean Anarchist Federation’s long fighting retreat through Manchuria where an anarchist revolution was achieved in 1929- 1931; and in the heart of the beast, Japan itself where women played a leading role in the anti-imperialist movement and in the syndicalist unions of the Nihon Jikyo and Zenkoku Jiren. There were also significant pre-WWII anarchist, syndicalist and anarchist- influenced movements in the Philippines (the Unión Obrera Democratica Filipinas of 1901-1913), Vietnam (the Tan Viet Thanh Nien Doan, the Viet Nam Cach Man Dang, and the Hoi Kin Nguyan An Ninh of the 1920s), Malaysia (the Anarchist Federation of 1919-1925?), India (the pre-independence anarchist wing of the Congress Socialist Party in 1934-1947), and Punjab, Hindustan and Afghanistan (the Ghadar Party of 1913-1938? which had branches in British-occupied Kenya and is believed to have had some influence among South Africa’s large Indian community) as well as anarchist networks in Kazakhstan, Georgia, Armenia, Ottoman Turkey, Iran, French-occupied Syria/Lebanon, and British-occupied Palestine. Many of these militants inhabited a global network of mobile revolutionaries, students, peasants and workers who operated as far afield as the Panama Canal Zone, East Africa, Brazil, North Africa, and the USA – a vibrant movement that is now being recovered by a new generation of Asian militants. So it is with great pleasure that the ZACF welcomes the announcement of a new pan-Asian online anarchist journal, Jalan: A journal of Asian Liberation www.jalanjournal.org Their founding statement follows: Jalan Journal is an independent journal the struggles of Asian-American peoples for freedom and democracy that Asian written by a multiracial collective of in the United States from an anti-racist peoples wage in the family, at work, in activists who work toward the liberation of and democratic perspective in order to their neighborhoods, and schools. From Asian peoples from the forces of racism, build solidarity among our communities the relentless Intifadas of Palestinians empire and neo-colonialism. Asians and with working folks in Asia. We combat pushing up against apartheid, to the jam- are Pakistani, Iraqi, Afghani, Korean, the historical and political roots of the packed streets of the 2005 Hong Kong Cambodian, Chinese, Palestinians and model minority myth that has functioned WTO protests exploding with fierce South countless other faces. We are gender- to divide Asians from other working Korean farmers, Filipino activists and bending men and women, queer and class people of color, both in the US and Japanese anarchists, we are in action. straight. We are fierce and loving. We are internationally. We also critically oppose A new society all around us is breaking what the racists fear. Many of us are also the statist and oppressive versions of out! here in the United States. This journal pan-Asian liberation found in Maoism, Read more from our Mission statement seeks to promote discussion and provide Bandungism and the Japanese empire of here: linkages, to remember the past so as to yesteryear. Today, a new vision is our only build for the future. We hope to discuss option, nourished by everyday struggles http://jalanjournal.org/mission/ Zabalaza page 23 international

30th congress of the Confederation nationale” du travail - france: consolidate international solidarity

The 30th Confederal Congress campaign against bosses and of the National Confederation of the state in the months to come. Labour (Confédération Nationale In terms of our International du Travail - CNT) took place Strategy the congress in Lille on the 19th, 20th and 21st of voted by a large majority in favour September 2008 in the Northern of “Reinforcing International French town of Lille. Solidarity”. This motion was This Congress was important historic, as for the first time to the CNT, as it finds itself since our expulsion from the AIT in a situation where social in 1996 the CNT has decided movements are demoralised to mandate its International and incapable of responding in Secretariat to aim, in the medium a co-ordinated fashion to the and long term, towards the arrogance of Capital. Moreover creation of a new International. the CNT is facing frontal attacks The International Secretariat and against Union rights, in the front the CNT will be launching, in the line against the reform of Union next few months, an appeal to all representation laws. of their international contacts. This Congress needed to The International Secretariat determine our organisational of the CNT, composed of fifteen ability to respond to the policies members is from now on co- of the Sarkozy government ordinated by three mandated and to adapt our strategy to members: Jérémie Berthuin, Fred face the new threat to union Simeon and David Duslam. representation. congress: CGT (Burkina Faso), SISSA No fewer than 67 CNT locals, from all (Italy), ASOINCA (Colombia), Solidaridad regions of France, were represented at Long live anarcho-syndicalism ! Obrera (Spain), ODT (Morocco), Workers’ Long live international Congress. Initiative (Poland), CNTG (Guinea), IWW solidarity ! We were also able to welcome (Great Britain), SAC (Sweden) and ESE delegations from organisations with (Greece). Long live libertarian which we collaborate on an international For our responses to the Reforms communism ! basis: CGT (Spain), FAU (Germany), USI on Union representation please see the (Italy) and the ASSI (Spain). - International Committee of CNT, Synthesis about the CNT syndical strategy France Other organisations, unable to (http://www.cnt-f.org/spip.php?article693). send delegates, send greetings to the The Confederation will launch a

Hamas, the Left and Liberation in Palestine by Sevinc (Workers’ Solidarity Movement), Ireland

Hamas’ recent “clampdown” on Fatah’s a vast extent, exploited the desperation to the brutal and completely illegitimate Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade in Gaza, rather and powerlessness of a majority of the Israeli occupation as well as widespread than its ongoing brutal repression against working class and peasants who had no disgust at the corruption and compliance leftist dissents, including that of feminist hope but to turn to the first hand which of Fatah. But no amount of anti-imperialist voices, dominated Western coverage of handed the urgent basic needs for their rhetoric can disguise its fundamentalist life in the occupied territories. survival; food, health care, social services religious nature and the consequences The hostilities between Hamas and and a short lived law and order in Gaza. that flow from it. Ultimately, while being Fatah is a US and Israeli dream come Receiving aid from same US friendly anti-imperialist is necessary, it is not true. It has also been manufactured to a Saudi financiers who backed US in the enough. Replacing the Israeli jackboot large extent, as it is more cost effective invasion of Afghanistan, Hamas is not with their own would be an empty kind to divide and rule a society than to trying to make its Sharia policies a secret of liberation for Palestinian women and conduct unpopular massacres such as either. The only respect for women Hamas workers. we witnessed during the Second Intifada. has is for mothers, daughters and wives An unwillingness to criticize nationalist Fatah on the other hand, lacking the rank of suicide bombers. resistance movements has resulted in and file structure of Hamas had already Very little is heard from the radical the left forgetting that it must not only lost the chance to unite with secular left and feminists since they came to support the liberation of peoples of dissent in Palestine and are too busy power last year; they are able to deploy Palestine from occupation but also from squandering what was left of Western aid enough violence to Hamas to silence any religious repression, racism and sexism. before Hamas came into power. opposition. Hamas’ financial supporters, Our anarchist policies of solidarity with The shifting of authority from from regions of the Muslim world where the people of Palestine are based on the corrupt US-Israel backed PLO to fundamentalism is rising, are still giving coherent principles of equality and justice fundamentalist rulers of the working class them millions. for all who live in that land, Muslim and and peasants does not change the fact It will continue to oppose any form of Christian, Jewish and atheist, men and that Hamas is authoritarian, nationalist demand for participatory democracy as it women, and straight and gay. and racist. It is trying to impose a de- has since its early days of establishment. From Workers Solidarity 105 facto Sharia regime in Palestine. It has, to Hamas’ support stems from its resistance Zabalaza page 24 international

Interview with Ilan Shalif from Anarchists” Against the Wall (Israel/palestine) Shalif is a veteran Israeli anarchist. [1] at the entrance to the military airport support for their actions? Do the This interview was conducted in January of Tel Aviv and distributing huge amounts nationalist and fundamentalist 2009 while the war on Gaza was still of photographs. elites benefit from the conflict and going on. if so, how? What do you think is the best ZACF: Can you please briefly tell solution: 2-State, 1-State or No- The conflict is mainly the direct result of us about Anarchists Against The State solution? And why? the efforts of the Israeli settler-colonialists Wall? Their origins and involvement who are dominant in the capitalist elite to The best solution has been regarded in the struggle against the wall? advance their conquests. There are some for tens of years as the only possible one: elements of compradorian interests of the Ilan Shalif: The AAtW initiative Socialist revolution in the whole region Palestinian ruling elite, both nationalist started with the joint Israeli-Palestinian and the world. and fundamentalist, but it is marginal. camp against the In the In spite of the bribes of the Oslo separation fence near last years, pact that enabled the return of the the Palestinian village as capitalist PLO leadership to Palestine, and the Mas’ha in 2003. It was globalisation tolerance for the development of the an initiative of the has gained fundamentalists, Israel never gave them Israeli “One Struggle” momentum, enough concessions that will make them anarchist collective to it seems tame. They are forced to give some which radical people that there resistance to Israel. joined who liked the is an option idea. for capitalist What do you think about After a few months p e a c e . . . boycotting Israeli products or the first physical but only if economic sanctions against Israel actions against the the settler- and what can people outside of fence in Zabuba colonialist Israel do? and Masha began – section of The call for boycotting Israeli in which an Israeli the Israeli products of the occupied territories is participant was shot at capitalists 30 years old – and was issued by the with live ammunition. will be anti-authoritarian anti-capitalist socialist This caused a huge overpowered organisation in Israel, Matzpen [meaning scandal in the media by the section Compas, founded in 1962] (http:// and the AAtW got a interested in matzpen.org). As the Second Intifada and lot of publicity. The camp was destroyed exploiting the Palestinians. the suppression of it took momentum, when the works on the fence advanced How accurate is the comparison to members of Matzpen abroad issued an but AAtW became an address for activists internet petition to BDS Israel. in the Palestinian villages and invitations apartheid South Africa, and what do for joint struggles increased during the you think of the fact that everyone in years. Activists with AAtW participated South Africa struggled for a 1 State in hundreds of joint demonstrations, solution while in Palestine people coordination meetings, physical direct seem to prefer to have their own actions too. As we have experts in state? photography, video, and journalism, we The settler-colonialist project in succeed in invading a very significant South Africa was based on exploiting the space in the media - including at times indigenous people. In the Zionist settler- prime time TV news. colonialist project the national socialists During the years and as a result of the were the leading power and they wanted impotence of the Israeli Communist Party, the land without its indigenous people. AAtW became the leading organiser in Practically, the two states solution the struggle of Israeli radicals against is the only one that can be materialised the separation fence and the coalition of without defeating Israel militarily. The the involved, sometimes mobilising a few more pragmatic and secular Palestinians, hundred participants to a specific joint who understand that, adopted it as their Friday demonstration. ideal. The less pragmatic ones adhere to the old PLO one state solution. The How do Anarchists Against the extreme nationalists and fundamentalists Wall see the recent developments in adhere to the one Muslim Palestinian Gaza and how do they react to it? state. Curiously no one demands that As AAtW is not monolithic there is no the version of the Palestinian state they common opinion on anything. However, suggest will include the East side of the I am sure that all the involved see it as Jordan - the Jordanian state where 70% of part of the Israeli efforts to extract as the population are Palestinians. many concessions as possible from the As anarchists we cannot call for Palestinians and to delay as long as any state solution - only for the end of possible the need to give back part of the the occupation of 1967. (The majority of Note: occupied territories of the 1967 war. the Palestinians who are citizens of Israel 1. A theatre of people dressed in white with During the last weeks we increased - of the 1948 conquests - prefer to remain blood stains all over lying down in front of the the activities - both with the four villages part of Israel.) entrance to the airport at which 21 activists we are in regular joint struggle with, and from AAtW were jailed for the weekend. with other Israeli groups and coalitions. Do you think that the conflict is We also had few initiatives of our own maintained by the elites on both like a dedicated critical mass, the die-in sides of the border to win popular Zabalaza page 25 international

A Hot winter in g“ reece by stefanie knoll (zacf)

Weeks of violent riots, clashes Merry Crisis and a Happy the overexploitation of immigrants and between ordinary people and the New Fear the fact that this society is torn apart police, the burning of police cars and Neo-liberal capitalism showed its by deepening class divisions. There is a attacks on police stations, the looting of most ugly face at the end of last year general feeling of hostility towards cops expensive shops, a burning Xmas tree when several banks in the US collapsed in the Greek population because of high amidst anti-consumerist slogans, street because of capitalist structures that are levels of police brutality and there are fights every day and night, calls for based on and reinforce greed. And it widespread anti-state and anti-capitalist revolution, occupations of thousands of has been shown one more time, but this feelings. Especially young people, one universities, schools, town halls etc. This time extremely openly and visibly, that quarter of which already are unemployed, past December was a hot winter month the state protects capitalism and wastes are facing unemployment. For the first in Greece and an event that needs to billions of tax money to save the banks time since the end of the Greek “Colonels’ be understood in more detail than was and the big corporations, such as the Dictatorship” of 1967-1974, young people reported by the mainstream media. It is automobile industry, instead of helping have no hope for a better life than their an unprecedented event in recent history the people. The Greek uprising can be parents.[2] An important part of this in Europe, a new 1968, a new highlight seen as a first reaction to this crisis and society knows that it has nothing to lose in the struggle against neo-liberalism, has therefore been called “the first credit- apart from the illusion that things might cutbacks in the education system and crunch riot”. Since the uprising in Greece get better. police violence. it has spread to other place, for example In Greece, as elsewhere, reformist There were important differences Iceland, Bulgaria, Latvia and Russia. trade unions, socialist and communist between these demonstrations and It is because of the economic crisis parties induce paralysis in the proletariat earlier ones in Greece. The crowds were and the uncertain future that teenagers by promoting the illusion that the national much larger and the protests were not in Greece face today, that the protesters, economy constitutes the common just in Athens but in many towns across mostly youth, adopted the slogan “Merry property of all and that economic growth the whole of Greece and they went on for Crisis and a Happy New Fear’ (the fear of will lead to increasing levels of shared well weeks. The police as representatives of the economic situation worsening in the being. These proponents of the welfare the state, in itself a violent institution, New Year). state recognise that capitalist society is responded in the usual way, with violence. The riots were very anti-consumerist. divided into classes but view the state as But the people on the streets resisted Expensive shops were looted, the embodying the general national interest. and stood united. Attempts to rupture municipal Xmas tree was burned etc. The class struggle is thus constrained by the convergence of the oppressed by But there has been no vandalism against workers’ and employers’ organisations attempting to utilise existing divisions small, privately-owned businesses as the without endangering the supposed such as by praising peaceful Greek media made it look. guarantor of gradual progress: economic protests as compared with the foreign expansion. The logic on which the power looters failed in the face of the emergence Reasons for the Uprising of the ruling class is based and for of practical solidarity and internationalism There were many reasons for the which the lives of the working class are forged through common struggle. All the Greek uprising: decades of police brutality sacrificed in endless toil, the generating barriers that usually keep the working culminating in hundreds of activists and of money with more money, becomes in class divided, between for example blue ordinary people being killed by the police this upside down ideology the universal or white collar workers, young and old, [1] (which immediately sparked the good to be defended by the state. citizens and immigrants, disappeared uprising as an unarmed 15 year old boy The most important aspect of the when everyone was marching alongside was killed by a policeman); the onslaught uprising in Greece in December 2008 each other. Among the broader working of neo-liberalism and privatisations that is that sections of the working class class there was sympathy towards the led to thousands of people being fired or broke out of the social-democratic (what we prefer to call) popular uprising, outsourced, worsening in the last months straight jacket constraining the modes not riot, which gradually gave way to due to the international economic crisis; and aims of struggle of this class. They less violent, more imaginative and more and cutbacks in and the failure of the showed that there is another way, not political acts. education system, just as in the May of class collaboration within corporatist 1968 uprising in Paris. Additional reasons institutions but one of to for the riots are government corruption, confront the existing system. The current GREECE: a CHRONOLOGY police brutality. Spontaneously, people start to attack the police in the streets around the square. In less than two hours, more than 10,000 people take to the nearby streets. This is a lengthy chronology of what happened in Greece Some anarchist groups occupy the historical building of during December and January, but it serves to show that social the National Technical University, the Faculty of Law and the revolutions can become true and gives us ideas of what to do Faculty of Economics to use them as centres of struggle. (and not to do) when we get into the same situation. It shows The news of the murder of the young boy immediately the importance of solidarity between workers, students and spread to several cities throughout the country where attacks immigrants and the need for direct action and occupations of against banks and police stations take place. radio and TV stations as well as municipal buildings. Monday, 8th of December

th More than 20.000 people, mainly young people, participate Saturday, 6 of December in a demonstration at a central Square of Athens. Riots and In the evening a police special guard shoots dead a 15- looting covered approximately half of the city centre. The year-old boy named Alexis-Andreas Grigoropoulos near Exarhia city’s Xmas tree was flared up by Molotov cocktails as a sign Square, an alternative district in Athens. Demonstrations start against capitalism and consumerism. immediately after the event and will continue to take place Tuesday, 9th of December every day for the next weeks, attacking especially police Teachers of primary and secondary education go on strike stations and police themselves. against police brutality. Shortly after the shooting mainly anarchists gather in the The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) denounced the area where the killing took place to express their rage against rioters and looters as secret agents of ‘foreign dark forces’. Zabalaza page 26 international economic crisis together with decades particular interests of different groups After the first five days of rioting, the of neo-liberal policies has in Greece, as through representation but by fighting for Town Hall of Agios Dimitrios (a suburb of elsewhere, undermined the illusion that class objectives through direct action. Athens) was occupied, organised by local capitalist growth will lead anarchist groups and some of to increasing prosperity for the workers who work there. all, through wealth trickling The occupants organised down from the rich to meetings with local people, the poor, a classic liberal called ‘popular assemblies’, argument so dominant in trying to broaden the revolt South Africa. The uprising organising local actions, constitutes a concrete always connected to the rejection of this myth and revolt. illustrates that the prospect At a later stage in the of a social revolution, which uprising, the National would simultaneously Opera House was occupied abolish capital and the by dancers renaming the state, is a possibility and historic Athens building not a distant utopian dream. “Insurgent People’s Opera”. It can be achieved by Since then the Opera has ordinary people, breaking been functioning as a free free from party politics and space for revolutionary repudiating the lie currently workshops and fora in spouted by politicians that solidarity with Konstantina we need to cut back now Kouneva (see below) and so that the future will be better. The so- The Uprising in Practice: everyone arrested in December, as well called “rioters” also rejected the lie that Occupations, the Role of as against the police state. politicians are the ones who decide about Workers All occupations served as bases of the what is going on in world politics because The recognition of a shared experience movement from which subversive actions they are the experts. The uprising has of repression led to the occupation of were organised and where rebels could shown how we can take back the power universities and public buildings such seek refuge, if necessary. In all these that politicians have stolen from us and as city halls or libraries which were activities, the common new characteristic how we can take things into our own transformed into sites of mobilisation was an attempt to ‘open up’ the rebellion hands. against the state and areas in which towards the neighbourhoods.[3] The sacrifice of the objectives of the counter information to fan the flames of The dominant and reformist trade class for decent lives on the altar of the the uprising could be spread. unions were partially successful national economy is often focused upon The National Technical University, in constraining the process of the particular vulnerable strata of the class which is the nearest one to Exarchia convergence of the class by preventing which are effectively excluded even from square (where the killing happened) manual wage workers engaged in a the social-democratic compact, such as was one of the first occupations and ritualistic one day national strike from migrants or the youth. Since these strata the main place for organising clashes joining the insurgents. This isolation of cannot be lulled into a stupor through with the police. Its occupants were the manual workers from the stream of integration they must be forced into young workers (including immigrants), struggle which limited the potential for passivity through outright repression. students and others – and many of them the intensification of the uprising was Rather than succumbing to the terror anarchists. The Faculty of Economics was unfortunately only transcended in rare of the authorities those marginalised occupied mostly by anarchist groups instances. The base union of workers in Greek society today took to the and antiauthoritarians who wanted to participating in the assembly occupying streets and attacked the centres of the use the building for counter-information Agios Dimitrios town hall decided to murderous violence of the Greek state – purposes. A lot of emphasis was put on perform municipal services for free, police stations. All those condemned to the organisation of everyday activities. bypassing the municipal authorities rot ‘in the national interest’ constituted They took over the restaurant of the which employed them. Unfortunately a combative community of struggle university and workshops were formed this decision was not put into effect due united not around the lowest common in order to run the occupation and to to intimidation by the city bosses. The denominator achieved by mediating the organise actions outside. role of union bureaucrats of constraining

Once again, they are trying to save the state and restore the Communist Party (PKS) try to block assemblies in order to public order. prevent the occupations. At 3pm the funeral, attended by more than 5.000 people, Friday, 12th of December of the dead boy takes place. By this day already 700 high schools and 100 universities Wednesday, 10th of December are occupied. A big student demo takes place in Athens. By A takes place which aim had been Dec. 12 police had fired 4,600 tear gas canisters, exhausting predetermined over a month ago: it is mainly “against the their supply. They had to order more tear gas from Israel. state budget 2009”. The riots spread to many other places Sunday, 14th of December Greece. The pattern is always the same: mainly students and A deserted café in Athens, called “Galaxy”, is occupied at young people attack police stations, banks, big stores and noon in order to be used as a counter-information and action state buildings. A big part of the rioters are immigrants. The coordination centre. It was renamed “Free Galaxy”. On the media talk of ‘Greek protesters’ and ‘foreign looters’, in an same day, four radio stations get occupied and are used for effort to flare up xenophobia and divide the protesters. broadcasting statements and communiqués. Thursday, 11th of December Monday, 15th of December High school students abandon their schools and gather In Agios Demetrios the popular assembly of the occupation (with their parents) outside of police stations, blocking 35 of try to cooperate with the municipal clerical workers in order to them. Libertarians occupy a Town Hall in a suburb south of restart some municipal services without the mediation of the Athens. The municipal workers support the occupation. municipal authorities. The plan is to satisfy only urgent social In several universities assemblies take place and university needs, such as issuing green cards for the immigrants as well occupations spread. Militants from the student organisation of as paying wages and extra allowances. Zabalaza page 27 international struggles through mediation was rejected sight in one of her eyes. The target was against the Palestinian people in Gaza, in two instances through the occupation not coincidental: female, immigrant, the Popular Front for the Liberation of of the offices of union federations. militant union organiser, she was the Palestine claimed in a statement to the The occupation of the building of most vulnerable for the bosses. The time Greek workers. The next day, the Greek the General Confederation of Labour of chosen was also not coincidental: the Anti-Authoritarian Movement (AK), Greece (GSEE) was initially started by media, the political parties, the Church, issued a call for protesters to flood the members of the base union port on Jan. 15.[5] The US had to re- of couriers, an independent route the arms shipment because the union – many of whom Greek government feared even more are anarchists and other protests. This was an important form anti-authoritarians. The of international solidarity and can problem was that the other be compared to the ones in South base unions didn’t join the Africa where Durban dock workers occupation, something that first refused to offload a Chinese if it had occurred would arms shipment for the dictatorship have given an enormous in Zimbabwe and recently an Israeli power to this project. arms and goods shipment in Durban If there was a real harbour. potential to further this Within Greece, two months after struggle it was in the her kiosk was torched in local riots occupations of municipal in November (and therefore not buildings (such as town connected to the uprising) 74-year-old halls, municipal buildings, Harikleia Ananiadou from cultural centres etc) which received a cash gift from a small group were managed by direct of anarchists calling itself Anarchist assemblies by locals Initiative, critical of violent aspects discussing their common Anarchists occupy Greek consulate in Berlin in the uprising, to rebuild her life. “As issues and taking decisions anarchists, we felt we should support in a directly democratic a fellow human victimised by blind manner. And in those occupations local businessmen and union bosses have violence,” the organisation said in a anarchists participated [4]. been trying to ridicule the social uprising. statement. The reason for this was that In this pretext, the attack on Konstantina other shop owners were helped by the Repression and Solidarity is lost in the everyday news. The workers government, but only the ones attacked More than 270 people have been of ISAP, however, showed solidarity with in December received such help. arrested in connection to actions, since the her and occupied their workplace which beginning of the insurrection in 15 cities. hires Kuneva’s cleaning company to The Role of Anarchism in the 67 of them have been detained, while clean its building and which is therefore, Uprising 50 immigrants that were arrested during according to the workers, complicit in the The Greek anarchist movement the first 3 days were rapidly condemned attack. is among the largest in the world in to 18 months of imprisonment and are While the uprising was still going proportion to its country’s population. being deported. 19 arrestees in on, another event happened that drew Anarchists and anti-authoritarians played face charges under the anti-terrorist law. solidarity from all around the world: the a central role in the uprising. It was Konstantina Kuneva, a militant union war in Gaza (read more about this on anarchists who started the riots and who organiser, is one among the hundreds Page 24). Besides demonstrations against proved that we are not as far away from of female immigrant workers who have the war, Greek activists also called a revolution as we think we are, and that been working for years as cleaners for the boycott of a US arms shipment revolutions can take place even within at OIKEMET. She is well known for her to Israel which on its way there was the European Union. Anarchist flags were stance against various bosses. She was supposed to dock in the port of Astakos. hung from the many occupied buildings attacked by unknown people, probably The shipment contained three hundred in Greece and even from occupied hired by her boss, with sulphuric acid and twenty-five 20-foot containers, over embassies and consulates around the to burn her face with the intention to 3,000 tons, of ammunition. It was an world, including Berlin, in global solidarity kill her while returning home from work emergency shipment of arms to aid the with the uprising. late at night. As a consequence she lost occupation in its ongoing war crimes Since the “Battle of Seattle” in 1999

Tuesday, 16th of December of the GSEE. A group of 50 people manage to enter the studios of NET, An antiracist demo with a few hundred people takes place the national, state-run television channel and interrupt the organised by immigrant and antiracist organisations. news bulletin at 3 pm. Friday, 19th of December Wednesday, 17th of December Around 100 people interrupt the premiere of the National The central offices of the General Confederation of Labour Theatre in Athens. The text distributed to the audience of Greece (GSEE) is occupied by a group of about 70 workers in and actors reads, among other things: ‘now that you’ve order to criticise the trade unionist bureaucracy and promote deactivated your mobile phones, it’s about time you activated the idea of a politically independent union. your consciousness’. University students hang two giant banners on the Acropolis Saturday, 20th of December rock with slogans calling for mass demonstrations the next day During the day 3 radio stations are occupied. across Europe and resistance. Monday, 22nd of December Thursday, 18th of December The Town Hall of Peristeri is occupied by about 100 people. A big demonstration of about 20.000 people takes place, A mafia type gang attacks a migrant cleaner, Konstantina including lots of workers who are on strike. The demonstrators Kuneva, 44, the secretary of the cleaners’ union, as she is try to attack the new Xmas tree which gets protected by returning home from work late in the evening. the police, a ridiculous picture of the state force protecting Saturday, 27th of December capitalist/religious symbols. At noon, 300 people occupy the headquarters building of ISAP, After a similar demo in the city of Patra the local Workers’ which hires Kuneva’s cleaning company, as a first response to Centre gets occupied following the example of the occupation the brutal attack on her. Zabalaza page 28 international anarchism has been central to the global important uprising, but after a while Even though the immediate riots movement against capitalism, pushing it will die down. This situation brings have died down, this is not the end of for a social revolution in which there anarchists in Greece in front of a new the uprising. Some occupations are still is a need not only to get rid of global reality, to sit down and examine ways of going on. As soon as there is renewed capitalism but also the state. Instead forming a serious, militant and coherent police brutality or more cut-backs in of the sectarianism of the authoritarian organisation, an anarchist organisation of the public sector, people will take to the left, over who gets to rule once a the class struggle – linked to rank-and- streets again. Let’s hope that next time “worker’s state” is established, the anti- file workers – and not only engage in the workers will join the insurgents. authoritarians worked on the ground spontaneous actions, so that the uprising together with workers, students and non- and occupations can spread. political people and saw themselves not Many acts in the Greek uprising are as the vanguard but as among the many reminiscent of 1968 in Paris, blending ordinary people who rose up and showed humour and mischief. Many activists that they can do it themselves. Anarchist focused only on the spectacle of various ideas of self-determination, mutual aid events, like interrupting TV shows with Notes: (see Page 11), community power, freedom banners reading that people should and equality have spread across the rather turn off the TV and start rioting, or * This article uses data and analyses of our struggling populace in the form of strong theatre performances with banners that comrades abroad, all of whom would be anti-authoritarian sentiment, manifested were funny but don’t necessarily lead to too many to name – except those that are in hundreds of calls for assemblies and the overthrow of capitalism and/or the explicitly quoted – and includes first hand strikes, and scrawled on thousands of state. The problem is that they see the accounts of the events in Greece. It should banners and building-sides.[6] uprising as well as such spectacles as an be noted, however, that much of this end in itself. analysis and especially the chronology are Lessons from the Uprising The riot, in general, was not felt in based on articles by the left communists In the light of the global economic any significant way in the workplaces, Blaumachen and TGTP. The article is crisis, events like those in Greece in the sense that no strikes were called also based on many discussions with our will happen all around the world. It is to support it. The only exceptions were comrade Komnas Poriazis, who wrote parts important for us to organise so that the teachers’ strike on the day of Alexis’ of this article and whom I wish to thank. we can take over the factories and the funeral and the big participation in the Special thanks also go to our comrade land and not only show our anger in strike against the state budget on the Dimitri who read and commented on this demonstrations. A new world can only 10th of December. Apart from these, article before publishing. be created by ourselves, but it cannot the rebellion left workplaces untouched. 1. The Greek police has a long history of killing ordinary youth, about 100 have be created by protests alone. The Greek [7] Any revolution, however, has to link been killed in recent decades. Not a uprising also shows the importance of workers with other oppressed people, to international solidarity. single policeman was ever convicted. be successful. The general strike, brought Nikos Raptis (2008) Greek Teenagers: It is only a matter of time until the about only by workers, is still one of the economic crisis will hit South Africa http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/ most important elements to bring about viewArticle/19930 hard and will add to the already existing a social revolution. The people involved unbearable conditions for the majority 2. Kaimaki, Valia (2009) Bailouts for the in the uprising should have made links banks, bullets for the people: Mass uprising of the population. Will the revolutionary with workers to spread the insurrection of Greece’s Youth: http://www.zmag.org/ left be prepared to take this further than and take over the factories. znet/viewArticle/20131 demonstrations or left sectarianism? Will Although this uprising has not 3. Blaumachen (2009) Like a winter... we see that no political party can lead brought about a Greek revolution, it with a thousand Decembers: http://www. the people but that the people have to has brought tens of thousands into the anarkismo.net/article/12012 make the revolution themselves? Will we anti-authoritarian movement and taught 4. Correspondence with our comrade try to push for everything in a situation them how to fight in the streets, created Dimitri, a Greek anarchist that threatens us with nothing? thousands of popular assemblies as well 5. ibid The Greek anarchists are known as strengthened existing groups, and 6. Carman, Jake (2009) A Close Look at the for their insurrectionary and anti- shown both the insurrectionary populace Greek Insurrection. In: The Nor Easter #4 organisational tendencies. It is because and the government and capitalists that Winter 2009 of this that anarchists are often seen as the power truly does lie with the people. 7. Blaumachen (2009) Like a winter... chaotic looters with no concrete goal. [8] 8. Carman, Jake (2009) A Close Look at the We have seen that this can lead to an Greek Insurrection

Sunday, 28th of December Saturday, 10th of January People participate in actions against the opening of shops Radical reporters and journalists, workers and students and block entrances. In Greece shops are normally closed occupy the HQ of the Union of Athens Daily Press Editors on Sundays but the government decided to open them (ESIEA) in solidarity with recently fired journalists, with the “exceptionally” in the centre of Athens in order to compensate attack on Konstantina and with the uprising. They speak the damage the “shop-owners” suffered in previous weeks. out against “ideological terrorism spread by the media” and Another example of the state protecting capitalism. try “to prevent the bosses from imposing their views about Wednesday, 31st of December the events”. They further call the media “a crucial ideology There are 4 new occupations in Greece. A gathering against apparatus of the State”. the bombings of the Israeli army in Gaza and the occupation in Wednesday, 14th of January Palestine takes place. Employees and workers from 27 unions had a sit-in in the Half an hour before midnight and New Year, a crowd office of Evangelismos hospital, where Konstantinta Kouneva of approximately 1,000 people gather outside the prison of is being treated. Athens to show their solidarity to the prisoners who have been Friday, 16th of January arrested in the riots in previous weeks. 3 new occupations take place. Friday, 9th of January Saturday, 24th of January After a few days of break new clashes between protesters A big and militant anarchist demonstration takes place in and police take place in Athens during an educational protest- Athens against the ongoing police and state repression. march. Zabalaza page 29 international

Something Smells different in Cuba by movimiento Libertario cubano, may 2008

The MLC – not to be confused with an “MLC” established by “right-libertarian” Cuban businessmen in Miami in 1984 – was established in New York in 1961 by exiled anarchist and syndicalist militants of the Libertarian Association of Cuba (ALC, founded in 1939, but whose roots lay in the national anarchist federation established in 1924). Today the MLC has branches in Mexico, France, Spain and apparently Venezuela. The powerful Cuban anarchist movement remains one of the most neglected by students of revolutionary history. Deeply involved with the liberation struggles against both Spanish then American imperialism, and notably progressive in its anti-racism in this former slave colony and in its education of girls alongside boys, the movement dominated the Cuban labour movement for 55 years until the formation of the 200,000- strong anarcho-syndicalist Cuban National Confederation of Labour (CNOC) in 1925, the same year a tiny 100-strong Cuban Communist Party (PCC) was founded. Instrumental in the overthrow of vicious US-backed dictator Gerardo Machado in 1933, the Cuban syndicalist movement was driven underground by dictator Fulgencio Batista – who tried to supplant it with a yellow, state-run union federation headed by PCC stooges in 1938. Batista even took two Communist Party members into his cabinet in 1940, and it took his ousting by Ramón Grau in 1944 to end Cuban communism’s flirtation with Batista. In fact it took the counter-revolution of 1959-1963 in which populist demagogue lawyer Fidel Castro (a former leader of the bourgeois-nationalist Orthodox Party) used his ill-gotten control of the Cuban armed forces to suppress the true anti-Batista revolutionary forces of the anarchists, syndicalists and others who had taken Havana [1] and to rehabilitate Batista’s hated old allies, the PCC. The ZACF considers Castroist Cuba to be ruled by a militarized right-populist dictatorship: Castro’s first cabinet contained not one single working class member; it rapidly crushed the trade union movement; it became Francoist Spain’s biggest trading partner from 1967; and when Nazi-supporting right-populist Juan Perón of Argentina died in 1974, Castro declared three days of national mourning. Today Cuba is rotten to the core, one of the world’s few remaining museums to decayed militarist arrogance and the egomania of a dying “Maximum Leader”. And yet the Cuban anarchist movement is starting to rebuild: In Cuba in the early 1980s, according to a report by ABC Latinoamerica that was reprinted in Black Flag No 195 (November-December 1989), “the Zapata Group, an agrarian anarchist-syndicalist group … first emerged … to challenge the stalinist practices of the Cuban dictatorship. The group saw itself as following in the traditions of the great Mexican revolutionaries Emilio Zapata and Flores Magon: they took part in industrial agitation and unionisation. Free syndicates were not tolerated and members of the group were forced to operate clandestinely. In 1982 several large-scale strikes took place. The authorities decided to clamp down and rid themselves of the strike militants. The police moved in swiftly and rounded up 20 members of the Zapata Group. They were accused of trying to form an independent union and of industrial sabotage. Five of the 20 were sentenced to death. One of them, Carida Paron, died in prison – she was tortured to death in the Villa Marista interrogation centre. Anarchist exiles began immediately a campaign to save the five. Communiqués about their fate were sent out to groups around the world. Many of these communiqués did not reach their destination, information about the campaign was suppressed, in some cases there was even disbelief that this sort of thing could happen in Cuba underlining the general ignorance of many outside Cuba about the true picture of what was happening in that country. In consequence international support was largely confined to exiles in Central America and the USA. As a result of the international support the death sentences were communted, the five instead being given long-term jail sentences. Only the fate of one, Donato [Angel Donato Martinez], is known today – the other four may well also be still inside, or they may be dead. Donato is believed to be inside the Combinado del Este prison, near Havana. Information as to his precise conditions is unknown. His supporters in exile believe his situation will improve if interest in him increases internationally. The treatment of anarchists and agrarian- syndicalists in Cuba – who demand liberty, land and collectivisation – over the years by the Cuban authorities has been that of continuous persecution, imprisonment and – more often than not – death. Many activists rarely find their way to prison but are later taken by the death squads and killed. Since 1982 we know of several militants who have had their lives ended in this fashion. Ramon Toledo Lugo and Armando Hernandez were both killed by the death squads. Others have been given 30 year prison sentences – people like the brothers David, Carlos and Jorge Cardo, Jesus Varda, Israel Lopez Toledo, and Timoteo Toledo Lugo. Certain of their wives were also imprisoned on conspiracy charges.” The report ends by saying: “The above represent only a tiny fraction of the anarchist and syndicalist struggle inside Cuba. The struggle has been isolated, but it continues. It is long-time that it was widened and internationalised.” On July 19, 2003, a group of 30 anarchist militants, old and young, celebrated the anniversary of the Spanish Revolution in the suburb of La Víbora, Havana. A Swedish Workers’ Central Organisation (SAC) fact-finding visit to Cuba in the mid-2000s found a syndicalist movement operating underground [2]. The Cuban anarchist movement lives on and will survive Castro’s hoary old state-capitalist regime. In 2005, Celia Hart Santamaria, a member of the Cuban Communist Party and member of a ruling class family who decried the “inertia” of the party and the existence of “certain mechanisms of capitalist restoration” in Cuba, appealed to the anarchists and other true revolutionaries to build a Cuban leftist alternative – while claiming that “to the left of Fidel is only the chasm”. In response, the MLC said that this chasm was “the absence of liberty, equality and solidarity” [3]. The MLC called for a minimum programme to build a true Cuban leftist alternative platform that would have three planks: the demilitarisation of the Cuban state and society; the direct self-management of the economy by the workers; and the reclamation “with force and determination” of the right of the Cuban people to freely associate and organise their own independent formations. The MLC statement ended with the telling words that… to the left of Fidel there isn’t any chasm, any cliff, any deep hole. What opens up, not to the right of Fidel but to his left, Celia, is nothing more nor less than the wide course of liberty. Introduction by ZACF

MLC: With respect to the situation in ( of Cuban anarchists in Ours is the voice of uncompromising Cuba these past few weeks [May 2008], exile) speaks up to answer the unknowns commitment to freedom, equality and the Cuban Libertarian Movement – MLC and the challenges facing Cuban society. solidarity that has always been the sound Zabalaza page 30 international of the Cuban anarchists. power scheme nor disturb its survival. many others we still don’t have: Cubans Indeed, something begins to smell will have to wait a while longer so that a different in Cuba; perhaps in tune with Old Perfume in New Bottles? trip abroad will not constitute a via crucis the flavor of the post-Fidel era. For The web of power doesn’t seem to [a path of sorrow]. starters, that verbosity that filled all have changed too much besides the The old “commander” stirs in anger spaces until the 26 of July of 2006 is loss of its charismatic component. There or anguish in his convalescent bed and no longer there, where it was heard for will no longer be a Moses to guide the in a letter to the UNEAC congress he almost half a century. Since then, the people through the Red Sea nor to angrily expresses the annoyance that an eventual prostrate “commander” has begun to smash the tablets, and everybody knows flood of appliances would provoke in him: write, but we all know that the written there is no marketing campaign capable “Can we even guarantee mental and word doesn’t have the same spell as of rendering Raúl Castro a seducer. physical health with the unknown effects the spoken word and even less when it Therefore, the state’s discourse, suddenly of so many electromagnetic waves for is elusive, erratic and lacking in interest deprived of its most inspiring flights of which neither the human body nor the to anybody who thinks outside of the fancy, doesn’t have any other recourse human mind have evolved?. The UNEAC personality cult. Maybe that is why so than minimal sincerity and appeals to congress can not fail to address these many, more than was foreseen, in the efficiency. thorny issues”, (8). streets, in clandestine films, in household Today everybody knows – and now His apocalyptic roaring is significant; blogs, show a desire to liberate the by word of the highest hierarchy of mostly because he himself has been people’s voice from the ties that bind it. the State or its press – that Cuba can’t during all these years the Cuban most Even the first violins in the governmental produce enough food for its population, exposed to such “electromagnetic orchestra, surely egged on by the same that agriculture is in a ruinous situation waves”. On the other hand there is a old confidential and carefully whispered without immediate solution, that the certain enigmatic tone in his exhortation commentaries growing louder by the transportation system is ancient, that a to a congress of intellectuals and artists day, have no choice but to recognize good portion of the population of Havana to take on a subject for which, in principle, what would have been unthinkable years able to work doesn’t even bother to other disciplines would be better suited ago. Vice-president Carlos Lage, for obtain employment because it’s just not to handle. Is it a last minute search for example, recently proclaimed at the VII worth the trouble! (6). There continues allies; a dramatic call for help to those congress of the UNEAC (National Union to be a deficit in water transport, etc. who share his authoritarian atavisms? of Cuban Writers and Artists): “The dual Everybody also knows about the “excess Beyond these comings and goings, morality, the prohibitions, a press that of prohibitions and legal measures that it’s time to get used to the idea that doesn’t write of our reality as we would hurt more than they help” because, a the coming avalanche of “liberties” is like to, the unwelcome inequalities, our few months before Lage, the then-acting not general and even less constitutes dilapidated infrastructure, are wounds of and later elected, President Raúl Castro an abandonment of the harsh punitive war, but of a war we have won.” (4). It’s said it that way in person during his year- measures or of the classic and absurd transition language, no doubt, since they end speech at the National Assembly of prohibitions: not paying your bus fare, can’t even keep alive much longer those Popular Power (7). Nobody doubts that with its attendant disturbance may be moribund triumphal bellicose airs after this all has to change and there are very considered an “act of vandalism” that admitting that the wounds are too many few remaining that have not yet become will land its perpetrators in jail (9), while and too severe for a political regime self- aware that credit is for a finite time and those who want to have their own blog conceived and presented to the world patience runs thin. For the great majority will be blocked under the assumption as “revolutionary” and “socialist”; even of the people the changes have to be that, by its circulation and use of certain admitting that the military victory only now – hic et nunc, they would say in Latin programs, they may endanger “national means keeping the elite in power. – or they will never happen. security” (10). Some Even more direct and piercing But of course, prohibitions, considered than Lage’s was the language used by those changes are in “excessive”, begin to Alfredo Guevara in the aforementioned the hands of the same fall on their own weight, congress of the UNEAC, charging against people who should but none of that for undeniable stalwarts of “revolutionary” take responsibility the time being enables pride such as educational achievements. for the situation the institutionalized About them, Guevara asked himself: and that’s why you promotion of essential “Can the primary, secondary and pre- can’t expect much freedoms; amply university schools, such as they have from intelligences demonstrated by become, managed by absurd criteria and and attitudes that the harassment of ignorant of elementary pedagogic and up to now they counter-cultural youth psychological principles, violating family haven’t been able to initiatives. We can show rights, be the forming mold for children demonstrate. For this as evidence the citations and adolescents, and hence of the reason the “changes” and “inconveniences” future?” He answers that “it can never be that have been suffered by the rock solidly built out of dogma, stubbornness, proposed are trivial: permits for the sale band Porno para Ricardo and in particular ignorance of reality or by dismissing of certain medicines in the neighborhood the harassment of its lead singer Gorki whistleblowers and the citizenship”. pharmacies, or cell phones which until Aguila. This is a clear show of disconformities yesterday were only available from a and even sorrow that Guevara quickly friend visiting from abroad, permits for Self-Management: An Aroma extended to the Cuban Institute of farmers to buy agricultural tools, seeds of Freedom and Equality in Radio and Television – under the direct and fertilizer! And also for the permanent use of unproductive state land, permits Solidarity supervision of the Ideological Department Something smells different in Cuba, of the Communist Party – whose offices for computer access, DVDs and car alarms yes; but not enough to harbor too many he called “neo-colonial media with its for those with convertible currency, and illusions about the strategy for change stupid programming dominated by such also allowing Cubans to stay at the hotels that seems to guide the steps of the enormous ignorance that they don’t that up top now were reserved exclusively fossilized “vanguard”. In our view, the even know they are allies of capitalism for foreign tourists. What is surprising is current flexibility is due to certain basic in their obscene manifestation” (5). Such not the fact that such prohibitions have political and economic reasons. Among discourses, however, in spite of their been lifted but that such mundane things the political reasons, it’s worthwhile to virulence and their bitter complaints, have been prohibited at all! Meanwhile, note in the first place the need to make it don’t quite criticize in depth the whole there’s a fundamental permit among so understood that a change of orientation Zabalaza page 31 international is taking place and that such change is that the Cuban workers feel towards connected with the food industry. That the telltale sign of the transition from one the “socialist” production structure is why it is not generalized and genuine Castro to another; and second, it’s urgent have led some analysts to return to self- self-management but another turn of to encourage minimal expectations in a management proposals; about which we the governmental screw that allows the population that has begun to show with anarchists have something to say. elite the power to extend its time frame increasing clarity its growing discontent. The first thing we have to say is and to renew its capacity to control the Among the economic reasons these that self-management is not a cosmetic workers. measures are geared to obtaining nor a band-aid but rather an integral Self-management, as we anarchists additional dollars to revitalize the state’s conception totally against private or state understand it, can’t even be thought coffers that are in no condition to finance capitalism; an idea of if it isn’t based on the importation of basic needs and for that rivals any other widespread people’s which the large Venezuelan subsidy is not model of production, freedom and autonomy for enough; a contribution of foreign currency distribution and grassroots organizations. not everybody can afford. Betting mid- trade and which To put it clearly: those term the most frantic search surely exists as a whole, seditious “self-managers” consists of finding a way for the nation to without impediments manifesting in Cuba recover lost productivity levels and food or caveats, only as today will only appreciate self-sufficiency before the situation really much as it can be one part of the problem gets unbearable. Along this road, and not generalized to all as long as they’re as the result of a coherent project, it is a spheres of society. not capable of seeing matter of adopting the “Chinese model” In short, self- that self-management in combination with other initiatives along management can not is not possible in a the “Vietnamese model”, as has been be understood as a repressive milieu with recognized by Omar Everleny, university test tube baby, as an exuberant military professor and high level director of the some practice worthy and police apparatus, Center for the Study of Cuban Economy only of minimalist with a monopoly by the (11). Meanwhile, Raúl Castro was more and isolated only party over all the eloquent in his year-end speech and experimentation mechanisms of expression together with his wishes for a happy but as a model for and decision-making 2008, he said goodbye with the vanguard relations between and with a perpetual “materialist” equivalent of governmental free, equal beings in disciplinary alignment hocus pocus: “Let’s work hard!” (12). solidarity, capable of of “mass” organizations The political regime wants to show deciding, individually and collectively, with the power elite. As long as this a more flexible face, but that doesn’t the affairs of their lives. Just as doesn’t change, it is true that something seem to be anything other than a self- centralized state planning and market begins to smell different in Cuba but it is preservation tactic; something that competitiveness require totality, a self- also true that the government continues the stubbornness and pride of the managed economy also wants to be to act as the most efficient deodorant. “commander in chief” had not allowed plenary, seeking expression on levels that Once again we’ll have to opt not for faith up to now. The extensive network of are not purely economical but include in the worn-out machinery of domination State repression and control is intact people’s whole lives. Self-management but in trusting people’s capacity for but, even so, we must celebrate that is not a decoration but a principle, is not conquering and expanding their own in Cuba there is a healthy tendency to a model for the occasion but a liberating spaces of freedom. To remember these broadcast a discourse different from the and revolutionary project by which people things on such an emblematic occasion official one: one with a different content, can re-invent Cuban society. as May Day is for the Cuban Libertarian different shades, and different rhythm, Thus, many of us fear that the seditious Movement another signature of its via other media that are not those still “self-management” proposals circulating dedication to anarchism and socialism; strictly controlled by the government. around Cuba can’t go further than the it is our emotional evocation of our far- For the time being, criticism of the search for a renewed identification of the away roots and above all a committed complete control of the economy by the workers with the state’s enterprises aimed reaffirmation of a horizon of freedom in state and the mayhem produced during at increasing productivity, something the unmistakable brother/sisterhood with all long decades by centralized planning as government may concede with a dropper the people worldwide who struggle for well as the radical feeling of alienation to small agricultural their freedom.

Notes: 1. For more detail on the Cuban anarchist and syndicalist movement, email the MLC at [email protected] / [email protected] or read the following books: a) Labor & Colonialism in Cuba, Joan Casanovas Codina, doctoral dissertation, State University of New York, USA, 1994. b) The Anarchist Challenge to the Cuban Independence Movement 1885-1890, Gerald E. Poyo, Cuban Studies, 15:1, Winter 1985. c) Slavery, the Labour Movement and Spanish Colonialism in Cuba 1850-1890, Joan Casanovas Codina, International Review of Social History No.10, International Institute For Social History, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1995. d) Cuban Anarchism: The History of a Movement, Frank Fernandez, See Sharp Press, Tucson, USA, 2001, online at: http://illvox.org/articles/ e) The Cuban Revolution: A Critical Perspective, , Black Rose Books, Montreal, Canada, 1976, online at: http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/dolgoff/cubanrevolution/toc.html 2. Interviews conducted by Michael Schmidt (ZACF) in 2004 with Acracia Fernandez (MLC Mexico) and S. of the Sveriges Abetaren Centralorganisation (Sweden). 3. Cuba: Exploring the “Chasm”: A Libertarian Reply to Celia Hart, MLC, Mexico, 2005, online at: http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire. php?story_id=346 4. http://www.kaosenlared.net/noticia/siento-hoy-mas-orgulloso-nunca-escritores-artistas-cuba 5. http://www.kaosenlared.net/noticia/peor-enemigo-revoluciones-ignorancia 6. http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/2008/03/21/nacional/artic10.html 7. http://www.granma.cu/espanol/2007/diciembre/sabado29/deseo-e.html 8. http://www.kaosenlared.net/noticia/carta-fidel-vii-congreso-uneac 9. http://www.noticiasdeautobus/tag/sucesos/page/11/ 10. http://www.kaosenlared.net/noticia/potro-salvaje-tumbo-blog-yoani-revista-consenso 11. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/latinamerica/newsid7325000/7325340.stm 12. http://www.granma.cu/espanol/2007/diciembre sabado29/deseo-e.html Zabalaza page 32 international

Imperialism, China and Russia by pier Francesco Zarcone (Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici), italy An inter-imperialist clash is taking place concentration of production and capital the real, basic (one could say structural) in the Caucasus in which the Georgian which gives rise to monopolies; the objective could be the maintenance of the dwarf is acting on behalf of the United formation (through the fusion of industrial unequal exchange system of value-labour, States. The perfectly predictable and capital and bank capital) of a strong to which the need to appropriate this or immediate Russian response - awarding financial capital and, therefore, a financial that raw material would be instrumental Putin the first round - has only highlighted oligarchy; the growing importance (not (and no longer primary), as was the case what an imbecile Georgia’s president is. just qualitative) of the export of capital in in early 20th-century imperialism. The As a good nationalist, he (once again) relationship with the export of goods; the physiological persistence and increase in made the choice in favour of an armed division of world markets between the international tension would correspond diversion, counting on US assistance great powers. Looking at this analysis, to the need (of those involved) to which, though, was never going to be in and thus sharing the point of view of defend and improve one’s position in the the form of military intervention, when economic phenomenology, today’s planetary economic hierarchy, so as to he should instead have been thinking globalization may be considered to be a make sure one’s position in the unequal about his country’s disastrous state. By further derivation, in today’s age of high system of exchange prevails. This means way of aside, it was another fine example information technology, of the situation that episodes of war are not merely an of how dangerous it can be to be an ally as studied by Lenin. expression of a desire for domination of Washington. (that is to say they are not only Having said that, let’s have a “subjective” phenomena). look at the question of imperialism Today, however, in an age in the age of globalization. As characterized by the return we know well, imperialism first of imperialism even in terms began to be talked around the of apparently motiveless end of the 19th century and early wars and brutal military 20th, during a particular phase occupations, and of course by of development of the capitalist the enormous importance of system. The best-known study the capitalist powers’ oil needs at the time, published in 1902, (and remembering that this raw was by John Hobson. But the material which provides well first serious economic study over 40% of the world’s energy of the question goes back to consumption [1] is not the Charles A. Conant in 1898 and his unlimited resource it was once “Economic Basis of Imperialism”, considered), it no longer seems published in the North American possible to share the opinion Review. “Classical” imperialism that the essential objective is is seen as a sort of historical simply to maintain the unequal expansionism, driven both by exchange system of value-labour. an excess of capitalist accumulation It has been said in modern times that As far as I can see, our perspective must and thus needing to be “exported” (and we have passed into a neo-imperialist be overturned: it is energy resources despite low consumption levels in the phase characterized by a merely informal that now have a vital, primary character. imperialist countries’ internal markets) (moral and media) form of domination, Indeed, we should be asking ourselves if and by the need to acquire new sources though not totally without its military the unequal exchange is nothing more of cheap raw materials and new markets. protection. Basically, globalization was than a means to enable domination, not Imperialism has therefore generally been felt to be an essential need. What strikes the object of domination itself. defined as the imposition by a single State one immediately about this phenomenon US imperialism outside the of its economic and political dominance is the role (and the huge power) of the American continent has developed over foreign territories and/or States, to multinationals, the larges fluxes in the over various phases. After World War the benefit of the imperialist’s national speculative movement of capital, the II it was associated with the intention capital. This phenomenon may also make crushing quantitative predominance of the of undermining the surviving European use of colonialism in the strict sense, that movement of capital with respect to the colonial system in order to create a series is to say the formal, direct appropriation movement of goods, and the enormous of client States for Washington, formally of territories (and populations) in order circulation of data and information. Some independent. This phase has generally to exploit them; nonetheless, it is not the people, however, have asked themselves been defined as a neo-colonialist phase, same thing as colonialism as such. if all this really does form the essential with local governments at the service Imperialism, then, is a form of characteristic of the phenomenon. In of US multinationals and US political monopolistic appropriation or control of other words, if we should not take into and military interests. An area of raw materials, energy sources and the consideration aspects that are inherent dominion was formed whose basis was export of capital; on the ideological front it to the productive dimension, in the sense provided thanks to military intervention, has to some extent become mixed up with that turning to the sphere of production intelligence operations and above all the European nationalism that flowered relationships involves consideration of the work of financial institutions, both in the 19th century with its sentiments the role of capital in the current state of international (e.g.. the IMF) and US - not (at times masked by humanitarianism) of the levels of “valueization”, in relationship to mention the armed forces of the client racial superiority - something that was by with the spheres of production and States. With the collapse of the USSR’s no means introduced by German Nazism circulation. Given that unequal exchange satellite system followed by the USSR (how many recall, for example, Winston systems persist, the greater productive itself, the possibility was created for Churchill’s revolting racism?). capacity of dominant countries results in the United States to greatly extend its The interpretation of the imperialist the enjoyment of lower working hours - position of world dominion, thanks also phenomenon provided by Lenin is now a as far as production is concerned - and to the spread of the neo-liberal ideology classic one. It is an interpretation that has in the acquisition of monetary value that of globalization and the feeling of total gone to the economic roots, establishing is much higher - as far as circulation is impunity which took the place of fear of the high level of development in the concerned. Basically, seen in this way, the enemy behind the Iron Curtain. Since Zabalaza page 33 international the rise to power of George W. Bush, the that by 2015, its internal market will have Sea gives China strategic access to the oil lobby has becoming a determinant of reached enormous levels. Nevertheless, Persian Gulf and an outpost on the Indian imperialist policies (though still as part China is largely dependant on oil Ocean. Finally, Tibet is being subjected to of a military-industrial complex), and supplies, due to its own low production. a policy of Chinese colonialization. Clinton’s conservative line gave way to It is believed that by 2015 it will need to It is well known that there has been the ultra-right line [sic.] of the current US import at least 4 million barrels a day, an increase in political and economic presidency, which supports permanent half the current output of Saudi Arabia. ties between Beijing and the Middle war and military occupations, as well as The United States sees China’s policies East, Africa and Latin America, as well theorizing the right of the United States as a seriously disturbing factor on the as those countries who have been on not to feel bound by any international strategic, economic and political scene in the US blacklist for some time, like Iran, treaty if it is not in its national interests Africa, Asia and Latin America, beginning Sudan and Venezuela. Sudan and Iran are to do so. locally to take control of natural resources. among China’s top ten oil suppliers, but The United States’ enemies today - China tends to treat far-Eastern seas as so too are Angola, Congo and Equatorial apart from Islamic fundamentalism, which the Romans did their “Mare Nostrum”, Guinea. China has also started to export the US itself fostered through its infancy the Mediterranean, containing Japan capital, irking Washington into forming - are China and Russia, irrespective of the and keeping an eye on the US military anti-China alliances. Above all in Africa, at formal nature of diplomatic relations, be presence. Myanmar is in its orbit and it present, this is an important factor, given they friendly or less so. China, still the is seeking to extend its influence towards that trade between China and Africa had world’s most heavily-populated country, the Arabian Sea, the Persian Gulf and already reached something like $40 billion today seems to be the only State that is the Middle East. In Asia, China - together in 2005, an increase of 35% compared to capable of rivalling the USA in the previous year. African oil about fifteen or twenty years’ reserves have turned out to time. The enormous financial be extremely interesting, so liquidity is enjoys allows China much so that during the ‘90s, to act as an investor on a world- China invested $8 billion in wide scale, and to support Sudan and $9 billion in Nigeria industrial projects from South in 2005, and also provided Africa to Venezuela, Sudan to Angola with a $2.5 billion loan Indochina, creating agreements (at very attractive rates) in to manage corridors of raw 2004 with which to rebuild the materials from the Caspian to country, shattered after 27 its industrial areas in the South- years of civil war. This was an East, areas where it it one of initiative with serious political the big competitors along with effects, as it allowed the Russia, the USA and local powers Angolan government to reject such as Iran and India, acting as an offer from the IMF, with its the Shanghai Pact’s anti-Islamic consequent, devastating, neo- gendarme. China’s gigantic liberal policies. financial surplus is also the fruit Neither should we ignore of decades of accumulation the fact that the US trade resulting from the second path deficit with China - $202 billion of “parallel development” in 2005 - has certainly not (profits from agriculture invested been getting smaller. China in industrialization) that was has become a sort of banker followed by China from the late to the United States as it 1960s to the early ‘70s, which continues to buy up US Treasury consisted in the exploitation Bonds and possesses huge of Chinese workers and the currency reserves in dollars determination, appropriation (these currency reserves and and management of surpluses by the with Russia - has also recently extended Treasury Bonds were calculated in 2004 Chinese State, which did not (and still its influence to the ex-Soviet republics as amounting to $600 billion). It is thus does not) disdain from using open where US influence has weakened, such evident that, while on the one hand repression. as Uzbekistan. There are rumours of the China is helping to support the dollar In reality, there never was a transition Taliban being supplied by the Chinese by affecting interest rates, on the other to communism in China, no techno- as a sort of anti-US measure, but at the hand it is equally in a position to impose bureaucracy ever took power; what current state of affairs it is impossible to conditions. And this is an extremely we have seen over the past 60 years is say more. dangerous situation, because if one day State capitalist management by a rigid In southern China, 1,850 km of roads the financial and economic difficulties bureaucratic centralism that is today are being built and the natural defensive of the United States worsen to the point carrying out a transition to capitalism barriers of the Himalayan foothills are that it can no longer face up to its various in its most savage form, but without being strengthened. “Road No.3” which foreign debts, who will guarantee that US troubling itself with going through directly links the Chinese city of Kunming leaders do not resort to wiping their slate the phase of Western-style political with Bangkok also crosses the scarcely- clean by means of a nice war? It would be democracy. We should bear in mind that populated regions of northern Vietnam a classic. At the moment, however, the China’s “economic miracle”, apart from and Laos, giving the idea of a precise United States is being forced to maintain being based on the fierce exploitation geo-strategic Chinese expansion. China an “elastic” attitude towards Beijing, as of the working class and peasants, has provides technical and military aid to it needs China to go on financing its debt made great use of a policy of exports Pakistan, including nuclear technology. and buying its Treasury Bonds. directed at a world economy which is And there is no shortage of news agency Some commentators are convinced already greatly indebted, and it continues sources claiming that the Chinese secret that, if things continue along these lines, to aim well beyond its boundaries. services are not unaware of the transfer then China will be the world leader in trade China’s real rate of development is of nuclear technology from Pakistan to by 2020. We shall see. The possibility of around 10% per annum (if not more): Iran, North Korea and Libya. Moreover, China becoming a reasonable autonomous back in 1998 it already produced 11.5% the construction of a large port complex economic giant can be seen in the of the world’s GNP and it is calculated at the Gwadar naval base on the Arabian non-correspondence between levels of Zabalaza page 34 international foreign capital investment in China and industry, which is at best weak and in Not many people know today about one the volume of Western sales on Chinese certain sectors actually declining further. third of all Microsoft software is produced markets. The marked imbalance between It must be said, however, that any future by Russian workers (both at home and Chinese exports and imports, which lies fall in energy prices could in theory be abroad) and that Russia is currently the at the root of the economic boom in the compensated for by using the huge third biggest exporter in this sector, after old “Middle Empire”, still results in the resources it has accumulated thus far China and India. West still dreaming about making China and by means Let us a huge market for “first world” produce. of public now examine As the Indian Nobel prize-winning s p e n d i n g the events in economist Amartya Sen underlined, i n c r e a s e s , Georgia and the Maoist age bequeathed China a in particular Ossetia. I do not reasonably efficient mass health service, investments. think there can but also and above all a state education There is of be any doubt system going from primary schools to course also that they are university which has been free for all the unknown part of an inter- from the 1980s; thus, the country also factor of imperialist clash enjoys the precious resource of a mass inflation. between Russia of good-quality university graduates, Of course, and the United amongst whom numerous engineers it is US States, even with a variety of specializations, to the obtuseness though certain extant that for some time now, American that has laid aspects appear industry has realized that China is able to the premise to indicate the produce excellent electrical components for such an contrary. After at much lower prices. The increase in agreement, with Russia no longer the the disastrous period that followed the Chinese consumption has undoubtedly Cinderella it once was. In other words, it implosion of the Soviet Union, Russia contributed to the increase in oil prices, is well known that the war in Iraq caused never really completed its internal causing a crisis for US consumers, who an increase in the price of crude oil restructuring, and it does not seem to be are starting to realize how uneconomical even excluding the increase in Chinese in a position to engage in an imperialist their gas-guzzlers have become. But consumption; and its effects could not competition with the United States, the best has yet to come, given that we exclude the hydrocarbons sector, with particularly outside its own geographic are talking about a country of 1.3 billion the consequence that in the end the rise area. Its new energy for international inhabitants, compared with the measly was so great that even the US economy economic and political relations is part of 300 million in the United States. could not handle it, all to the advantage a phase of expansion, that much is true; On a military level, too, China is no of Russia and Gazprom. As we have said, but as things stand at present, it is more joke. China’s military spending is second this situation has allowed Russia to make defensive than offensive. It is defensive only to the US and Pentagon experts - who huge cuts in its foreign debt, from 80% of with regard to the perfectly obvious are studying the possible scenarios of a GDP to around 25-20%; it is a situation encirclement manoeuvre by the United future war with China - believe that this that has permitted an upturn in the States, which has already installed itself country has the best military potential Russian economy to some extent. militarily in Kirghizstan and Uzbekistan: in order to compete with the USA, and Russia is not only carrying on a re- in other words in the same Central Asia the destructive military technology that composition of its military strength, it where, up to 2002, Russia was in a position would enable it to counterbalance the is also, most importantly, seeking an of check. The checkmate, however, never United States’ traditional advantage. It economic reconstruction of what remains materialized. The Baltic states, Armenia, is no accident that (according to news of the Commonwealth of Independent Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ukraine currently published at the time of the recent States. With Ukraine’s Naftogaz now out have pro-US governments; there is the Olympics) that most Chinese missiles are of the running, wallowing in debt, Russia question of US missile installations in aimed at the United States. can get on with its plans to build (at a Poland; there is also strong pressure for Then there is post-Yeltsin Russia, cost of €5 billion) a gas pipeline as far Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO. Indeed, which Putin has more or less put back on as the Baltic Sea to supply Germany there is no shortage of justifications for its feet and returned it to the level of a and the UK, cutting out both Turkey and Russia’s reaction to the Georgian attack great power, if only to a more local level. Poland and Ukraine, in such a way as to on separatist Ossetia, a country which For over five years now, the Russian bring Central Asian gas reserves under the West denies the right of political self- economy has been growing rapidly (at its control. Because of the EU’s energy determination that it was so happy to least 7% a year), thanks in part to the dependency on Russia, we cannot impose on behalf of Kosovo against Serbia quick-fire increases in energy prices. Two exclude the possibility that the rouble will with massive bombardments (the first thirds of income, and about half of the strengthen against the euro; in any event, against a European State since World War Russian balance, derive from the sales of Russia’s new currency reserves will allow II). It is of course true that Russia’s stout oil and gas, and the growth from this has Moscow to take on a growing role and defence of Ossetian self-determination is allowed Russia to accumulate hundreds hegemony in the Euro-Asiatic states of seasoned with a good dose of hypocrisy, and hundreds of billions of dollars in gold the ex-USSR; they have also permitted since it denies Chechnya the same thing and foreign currency, to pay off slices Russia to improve its economic relations it demands for Ossetia. But that’s the way of its foreign debt to the International with India (to whom it has become the it is. Realpolitik is one thing, consistency Monetary Fund, and to carry out an biggest arms supplier) and Japan. is quite another. If anything, it is sad to impressive programme of macroeconomic Though China is currently ahead of see the populations involved in these and financial stabilization. However, Russia as far as exports are concerned recurring nationalist disputes (and the Russia cannot describe itself as a healthy - in particular in telecommunications, underlying economic interests which are country, economically speaking, given large infrastructure and public works - entirely unconnected) not developing that its pro-capita income is still very low, Russia is making huge progress in the IT any sort of movement in demand of their around 35% of the EU and 25% of the sector, where it has seen a growth of at real social interests. USA. In wider terms, the Russian global least 50%. It is calculated that by 2010 But for Russia there is one prime area economy is dangerously fragile due to its Russia will be in a position to earn around of interest that is susceptible to imperialist great dependency on trade in oil and gas, $15 billion in the export of information development: the energy question. Apart to which must be added its low level of technology, thereby becoming the world from its connection with Russian defence economic diversification in recent years leader in this sector; 10 years before that, needs, the Ossetia-Georgia problem is and the terrible state of its manufacturing it was earning no more than $200 million. directly linked to the BTC oil pipeline that Zabalaza page 35 international is being built (from Baku in Azerbaijan to dream come true of making the 21st are going very badly for the US economy Cehyan in Turkey, via Tbilisi in Georgia), century a more American century than and people. The reign of easy living that which runs alongside the border of the the previous one. As far as today’s global followed World War II is seriously under Russian Federation. Azerbaijan and situation is concerned, the name of the threat. The US contribution to the world’s Georgia are effectively US protectorates, next inhabitant of the White House is not production is at around 23%; the USA linked by military cooperation to Israel, particularly important because, while is the country with the biggest foreign which in turn has an interest in the it is true that this objective is a driving debt and financial fluxes from Europe, Azeri oilfields that provide about 20% force behind the current administration, Japan and China are vital in financing of its oil needs. Russia is therefore linked as it is to the Texan oil lobby, it is America’s deficit. US economic growth part of the world energy competition, equally true that every President in the is based on a behavioural pattern of independently of the fact that it does near future will have to deal with what American families which reminds one of not need to import oil or natural gas. is a specific economic and strategic need the fable of “The Cricket and the Ant”, Nonetheless, it does need to control the for the USA (a country, and an economy, that is to say, consumption way above transport of energy, particularly towards which is today going through a serious production levels, resulting in an average Europe. It is by no means absurd to think crisis, with a frightening level of foreign indebtedness of US citizens of over 110% that a strengthening of this control can debt, much of which it owes to China). of their annual income, which entails strengthen Russia’s position and allow If the project were realized, the resulting increases in the percentage level for the Moscow to restructure itself as a great choking of China and Russia would have interest on this debt as part of the average power, to the detriment of US influence obvious consequences. The great danger spending. The series of exploding financial in the region. We are in a phase when of such a situation does not only depend speculation bubbles has certainly not the world’s reserves of oil, natural gas, on US military strength but also on the eased matters and recession is at the uranium and (for industrial needs) copper fact that the absolute prevalence of door. The United States is an economic and cobalt are diminishing, and control specific US macroeconomic and military and financial power in serious crisis and over them has become vital for the large interests and its blindness towards any its leaders know only too well that time is economies. limitations are actually official doctrine in against them. This only increases the risk There is no doubt that if the United Washington. A sort of globalized Monroe of adventurist policies that would have States were able to get its hands on Iranian Doctrine which could even lead to the tragic consequences. oil too (as well as Iraqi oil; let us not forget local use of nuclear weapons. Pier Francesco Zarcone that Iraq has the second-largest proven Today, the United States not only has Note: oil reserves in the world) and reduce the to deal with foreign affairs, it must also see Asiatic-Caucasian States, home to the to its own economic system, which makes 1. The United States supplies around new oil pipelines, to the rank of docile one think (and hope) that the historical one22 third August of the 2008 world’s oil production, but US vassals, then it everything would be constant of decline following a phase of for some time now has been an importer - in place for the Yankee establishment’s domination is true for the US, too. Things and thus dependent. against political t“ error in russia, we mobilise! by the Internatioal secretary, Alternative Libertaire, France/ belgium 29 january 2009

It is with dismay that we learned of the are equally related to the Russian state demonstrations of those oppose to [former assassination of President and now Prime Stanislav Markelov, Minister Vladimir] Putin, while a lawyer defending scorning the right of the media the human rights, that shows independence of social and trade his considerations. If Putin union movements can count on the silent in Russia, and compliance of his friends, of Anastassia the many bosses of western Babourova, a states, the defenders Russia’s journalist at the human rights, trade unionists, Novaia Gazeta revolutionary campaigners and and a libertarian progressives generally must c o m m u n i s t know that they are not alone militant of and that we support them Avtonomie Deistvie in their fight for liberty and [Autonomous justice in Russia. This is the Action], an reason why we were anxious organisation of to participate in a protest which several gathering against political militants have assassinations in Russia this been murdered 1st Sunday February 2009 over recent years by groups of the policeman who prevents all democratic at 15h00 in Paris, at la Fontaine des extreme right. The two were equally life while forbidding most gatherings and Innocents. engaged in the fight against oppression and the colonisation of Chechnya by the NOTE: The ZACF’s defense and prisoner-support arm, the Russian state, following the example of (southern Africa), offers its condolences to the families, friends and comrades Anna Politkovskaya [a famous Russian of Markelov and Babourova and its condemnation of the revived ultranationalist investigative journalist] who was climate in Russia – encouraged by the state and ruling ex-KGB elite. In recent years, murdered some years ago in similar Russia has seen FSB (the renamed KGB) forces crack down on factory occupations conditions… These political assassinations and anarchist organisations such as the syndicalist Siberian Confederation of are one of the aspects of a political terror Labour (SKT) http://syndikalist.narod.ru/ , fascist gangs murdering African and that shows itself by the schemes of other visitors, the rise of the crudest form of robber-baron turbo-capitalism and ultraviolent neo-Nazi groups against gays, the resurgence of Russian imperialism. foreigners and left campaigners, but they Zabalaza page 36 international

Change We Need:” an anarchist perspective on the 2008 us election by North-Eastern Federation of anarchist communists, usa RECHANNELLING OBAMANIA The following article on Barack Obama’s victory was written by our affiliated organisation in the US, the North-Eastern Federation of Anarchist-Communists (Nefac). We applaud Nefac’s positive attitude towards rechannelling the energy that was spent on the personality cult surrounding Obama into non-partisan community organising. But we feel that several key aspects of the very nature of the US presidency have been ignored by Nefac – aspects of America’s imperialist power that perhaps are clearer to us, located as we are in the “global south”. US Presidents may claim to be self-made men, but in fact they owe their position to powerful sponsors who may see fit to pull strings once they are in the Oval Office. In Obama’s case this may be ameliorated somewhat by the fact that his campaign drummed up an unprecedented amount of money from “ordinary citizens,” a diffuse group who do not exercise power in the same way as corporate sponsors do. The US Presidency is indeed one of the most powerful executive jobs in the world – but let us not forget that it is clearly an imperialist seat, thus whoever occupies it cannot help but advance the imperialist cause. But beyond Obama’s considerable presidential powers, including those as commander-in-chief of all US armed forces, there exist several other somewhat less visible and mostly unaccountable and unelected centres of power in the US beyond the judiciary (US Supreme Court etc) and legislature (Senate and House of Representatives): firstly the “military-industrial complex” (ironically, former US President Lyndon B. Johnson’s phrase), the core of corporations based on the oil and defence which often drive US foreign policy in a protectionist and war-mongering fashion; and secondly the state bureaucracy itself, one of the world’s largest and most powerful (including its intelligence agencies, which drove the illegitimate war on Iraq), which has its own strategic foreign interests separate to those of the incumbent Presidency and which because it is unelected has longer tenure in office and thus longer-range objectives than incumbent parties; and lastly the plutocracy, the wealthy old-boys’ club of lobbyists from Washington and elsewhere who push their own private agenda, including the imperialist “Project for an American Century,” usually sweetening their temptation with offers of financial or political backing. While changes of the hot-seat from Republican to Democrat have usually involved more progressive foreign policy initiatives, this is hardly always the case. For example, US support for Pinochet in Chile (who they had helped install by CIA-sponsored coup d’état in ’73) actually waned in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan despite Reagan’s obvious support for the far right (Iran-Contra scandal etc) because Washington felt that times were changing and its economic and strategic objectives could be better served in changing circumstances by loosening the iron grip of the Latin American dictatorships they had coddled for so long. Also, Democrat John F. Kennedy (and that Stalinist adventurer Cliché Guevara) took the world to the brink of nuclear war over the Cuban missile issue. The issues at stake today are American realpolitik, not the personal dreams of Obama. A Democrat in the White House will not necessarily act more democratically abroad. It is widely expected by even mainstream political commentators that for all of the above reasons Obama in office will be forced to move from a nominally progressive towards a centrist position in the American political landscape, and support the Washington Consensus (ie: US supremacy) abroad, bending the world to the will of the US. Yes, he is likely to have a slightly different timetable for the troop withdrawal from Iraq, but he is unlikely to ever challenge the oil oligarch’s control of Iraqi oil-fields because that stabilises the US’s oil-hungry economy – and he is likely to increase the troop presence in Afghanistan instead. Yes he is likely to send more aid to Africa, but then George W Bush sent more aid to Africa than Bill Clinton did (it’s part of their winning hearts and minds strategy for the “arc of instability” that stretches from Colombia and Venezuela through the Sahel and Sahara into Central Asia) – although the strings attached to Obama’s aid may prove less onerous for Africans. Having eschewed playing the race card in his campaign (although many of his supporters openly embraced a race-ascendancy argument), Obama is unlikely to embark on more than token welfarist protections for poor “people of colour” at home in the US as stabilising the banks becomes the route to “helping the people”. Yes, an Obama presidency has given many “people of colour” cause to celebrate around the world, but we’ll see what tune they hum after Obama invades his first “country of colour” – likely Afghanistan. How quickly they forget Colin Powel’s role in invading Iraq, or Condoleeza Rice’s role in advancing American imperialism in Africa. We must utterly reject with contempt the racist conceit that a black person in a position of power is automatically a better person for the job because of some inherent virtue located in the colour of their skin: if whites made this argument about a white president, it would be greeted with howls of outrage, so we must be firmly consistent in our application of anarchism’s anti-racist ethic. We must equally reject the nonsense that a black man in the Oval Office or in Tuinhuys will somehow – by virtue of coming from a disadvantaged background – automatically uplift all black and disadvantaged people. A rising tide does not, contra the capitalist slogan, lift all boats: it tends to sink the poor, leaky ones. Again, the argument is unequivocally racist and hierarchic and simply cannot stand up to anarchist scrutiny. We must see clearly that Obama’s or Zuma’s methods used to recruit for their cause – whether based on open, uplifting emotional appeals to hope or, driven by the cruder elements among their supporters, subtler, baser ones to black racism – are exactly that, methods… for the subjugation of the productive classes to their parasite friends. – Michael Schmidt (ZACF)

The election is over. Barack Obama will as the energy and media spectacle dies we also recognize that the capitalist become the next president of The United down, we would like for you to consider system is in a serious crisis which is States. The news of Obama’s victory the election from a different perspective. dragging down all working class and resulted in spontaneous celebrations It is our belief as Class Struggle Anarchists oppressed people and which even the across the country. The energy was that elections in a capitalist society in fact best-intentioned high office-holder is infectious and everywhere conversations can never bring true justice and security incapable of solving. The aim of this seemed to contain a positive outlook that to the average working person. We do piece is to provide a perspective on the people in the U.S. have not known for not believe that such elections can with crisis and an outline for solutions. many long years. Words like change and any degree of permanence prevent wars, The presidency of George W. Bush hope are being used, and it seems widely or deal effectively with racism, sexism or has been by almost any reasonable assumed that the election of Obama will environmental degradation. standard a complete disaster. Lies, wars, herald a new age of social justice, an end We stand in solidarity with the hopes a financial crisis and deep recession, and to the wars, and significant reduction in for profound change of the millions of the building up of a police state are just the racism the plagues U.S. society. But people who voted for Obama. However, a few of Bush’s dubious legacies. Some Zabalaza page 37 international of these were already obvious two years Implications of the Election magnitude of the economic collapse we ago as the electoral season opened and Without a doubt this election has been are heading into, the ruling class will be the liberals and reformists began their historic. We see two reasons. A Black aggressively seeking opportunities to campaign against these issues. However, man has been elected to the highest defend its advantages. The way forward glaringly missing from their attacks was office in the U.S., a country founded on is for working-class people to organize in why these problems existed in the first the mass kidnapping of Africans and the their own interests and to champion the place. theft of land from the Indigenous people aspirations of those who are oppressed by It is our belief that economic inequality, who already lived here. Second, Obama’s racism. We see social justice movements, war, racism, sexism and environmental campaign was marked by some of the neighborhood associations and cop-watch destruction are inherent in any capitalist most widespread mass organizing in as examples. These sorts of bottom-up society. Consider for a moment the years. movements stand in complete contrast to vast wealth that our society what will be the top-down efforts creates,everything from crops to of even an Obama administration advanced medicines. However, the to address social problems. Such access to this wealth is unequally efforts may alleviate some of the divided, determined by supposedly symptoms but they will leave free markets. It is assumed by the the root causes of the problems politicians and corporate media untouched. that these supposedly free markets The other significant are a natural part of life. Markets, element of the election was however, are set up by people; they the unprecedented grassroots can also be modified or undone by mobilization that supported people. As anarchists, we believe Obama’s campaign. Under a that the production and distribution banner of change and social of society’s wealth should be decided justice many thousands of people democratically, by people, and not volunteered,donated money, by a market mechanism which in and did the labor of making the fact is controlled by a few. campaign run. We view this trend with great excitement. Imagine Democracy what could be gained if that focus Anarchists are absolutely for on grassroots organizing was democracy. The concept that people taken into the communities we should come together and make lived in, into direct action on our decisions is the backbone of our on behalf instead of appeals to ideology. However, we do not view power. the U.S. system of democracy as We urge for this energy and being representative of those ideals. creativity to go into movements The Republicans and Democrats independent of politicians. We exist as two rival factions battling encourage the support of unions, over our consent to be ruled. Both neighborhood democracy, promote rhetoric of common interest resistance to police brutality, with ordinary people, but we feel support for political prisoners, this is an illusion. The politicians in models for mass education, and this nation exist to provide a stable also a movement with teeth. platform for the rule and exploitation Above all, we must struggle of the majority of working people for what we need, not what the in America by the minority of system is willing to give us. capitalists; that is, the owners of the In addition, we must all be on property on which we produce the The US is a nation deeply scarred by the watch for expressions of racist hatred wealth. We build, guard,clean and work racism, and despite what some pundits and organized fascist movements in the in the offices and plants , we transport might believe, it is clear to any working months and years following the election. the goods, and we sell them, but the person that racism is nowhere near The truth is that many white Americans capitalists own them them and pocket the dead. Racial oppression is a complicated are still openly racist, and there are profits. The interests of these two groups issue, and we do not mean to simplify it. groups that will exploit this, and real are not the same. The boss class wants to However, a discussion of why racism and anger of social issues, to create violent get as much from the workers as it can. white supremacy have been so intractable movements. The news of a Black church They want to pay us as little as possible in US society would have to consider how burned in Springfield, Massachusetts and sell us everything they own as dearly race has consistently been used as a just hours after the election was not as they can. Unchecked these conditions wedge by the ruling class in its rhetoric surprising, and we must use all means have led to uprisings. Don’t believe it? and its policy decisions to keep the necessary to stop such movements. Look at our own history! The abolition working class divided along racial lines, of slavery, 8-hour day, the right to form US NEFAC and so prevent the class from realizing November 2008 unions, overtime pay, child labor laws, its full potential as a force capable the end to legal segregation, the right of of self-organizing and overcoming women to vote and to choose, and the its oppression. The election of right of gay and transgender people to a Black man to the presidency be themselves was won not at the ballot of the US represents a real shift box, but by people organizing, striking, in the attitudes of Americans, boycotting and taking to the streets. and we applaud this. However, The liberals in elective office passed racism is not just about attitudes. the laws in response to the movements It is integral to the system of and to head off what could become a exploitation of working people. This revolutionary upsurge. systemic racism is what leverages the advantage of the ruling class, and with the increasingly evident Zabalaza page 38 theory

tangled threads of r“ evolution: ,’ reflections on the fdca s anarchist communists: a question of class by james pendlebury (zacf)

The Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici (Federation of Communist Anarchists, FdCA) of Italy represents one of the most consistent organisational manifestations inspired by the Makhnovist Platform of 1926 which argued cogently, in essence, for the operation of specific anarchist organisations within mass-based working-class formations, and for such organisations to be ideologically, tactically and strategically coherent in order to ensure effectiveness. The FdCA, closely related to the ZACF, grew out of the revolutionary upsurge of 1967-1973 which saw the establishment of a series of groups each named the Organisation of Revolutionary Anarchists (ORA) in France, Italy, Britain and Denmark and each inspired by the Platform’s pro-organisational position. In 1986, the Italian ORA merged with the Tuscan Union of Anarchist Communists to form the FdCA which developed a rigorous and challenging set of ideological position papers, this one written in 2005. The following is an abridged version of a commentary on the FdCA’s position paper Anarchist-Communists: a Question of Class. A full version of this article will be published at www.zabalaza.net and www.anarkismo.net. A Question of Class can be found online at http://www.fdca.it/fdcaen/index.htm

On Organisational Dualism the trust of the workers and distinguish account of three key events in the What distinguishes our tradition – themselves by the clarity of their ideas history of anarchist and working class the tradition of the ZACF and the FdCA and their ability to promote convincing movements, the Paris Commune of 1871, – is a commitment to what Anarchist- struggles which should, if conditions so the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917-1921 Communists: a Question of Class calls permit, be victorious.” And it can warn of and the Spanish Revolution of 1936-1939. “organisational dualism”, also known, the dangers of other tendencies whose But the real theoretical meat of the paper following the Latin American anarchists, ideas and programmes are likely to lead begins in the third chapter, which deals as “”. We believe that two to defeat. with the principles of class struggle. It organisations are needed to build the and his comrades notes that, while our movement begins revolution. One is the mass organisation defended the principle of organisational not with abstract ideas but with material of the popular classes, which, as the FdCA dualism in the Platform. They emphasised struggles, a movement that seeks to says, “aims to wring as much as possible several key features of the specific change the world needs an analysis of its out of the bosses in order to win greater organisation, which have been adopted situation. Here we are introduced to the wealth for the exploited classes they by the FdCA and the ZACF: notably method of historical materialism, with a represent. They try to satisfy the needs theoretical unity, tactical unity and statement of its principles by Karl Marx of the workers who are being continually collective responsibility. Curiously, there and Friedrich Engels: squeezed by their adversary, the bosses.” have been anarchist political organisations “The first historical action is therefore This organisation can go on to overthrow that do not adhere to these principles – the creation of the means to satisfy the bosses, emancipate the workers and the “organisations of synthesis”, which, these needs, the production of material establish a free and equal society. Only in some cases, “accept members who life itself, and this is precisely a historical the workers can free the workers. declare themselves to be Anarchists, action, a fundamental condition of any But because the mass organisation is without any further specification”. As history, which still today, as millennia built to defend the immediate material the FdCA makes clear, this leads to an ago, must be accomplished every day needs of all workers, it cannot be extraordinary mish-mash of ideas. How and every hour simply to keep man [sic] ideologically unified. Very few members can the specific organisation “elaborate alive [...]. In every conception of history of unions and popular social movements a common strategy” if its members are therefore, the first point is that this today are committed to overthrowing pulling in a range of different directions? fundamental fact be observed in all its capitalism or the state. Hence another Theoretical unity, the FdCA notes, “is facets and that its place be recognised.” organisation is needed: the political never complete” – but there must be It is another strength of the paper that organisation, or specific organisation. enough of it to assure a common strategy. it is equally forthright in acknowledging This, the FdCA says, is “made up of the Otherwise what is the point of having a Marx’s valuable contributions and in members of the mass organisation who specific organisation? exposing his errors. The FdCA elaborates share the same theory, the same strategy It is a strength of the FdCA’s paper that the point: and similar ideas on tactics. The task of it traces organisational dualism back to Historical materialism is therefore a this organisation is, on the one hand, to Mikhail Bakunin, and to the clearly stated methodology for the analysis of historical be the depository for the class memory principles and practices of his specific facts which can establish the primary and, on the other hand, to elaborate a organisation, the Alliance for Social cause for these in the evolution of the common strategy which can ensure the Democracy, within the First International productive structure of society, in the linking of all the struggles by the class and (1864-1877). The founding theorist of development of relationships and forces which can stimulate and guide.” Unlike class struggle anarchism was also the of production; every event that history Marxist-Leninist groups, an anarchist founding theorist of our own tendency; presents us with is therefore not the political organisation does not substitute and the FdCA paper begins with a brief result of ideas and the clash between itself for the working class or try to give discussion of his importance, proceeding different conceptions of life, but the them orders, and it certainly does not try to two other key theorists, Luigi Fabbri result of the economic interests at stake to seize state power on their behalf. It has and (while recognising – direct and indirect manifestations of the no authority within the mass organisation the importance of others, such as Makhno relationships which establish themselves other than rational persuasion of the and Errico Malatesta, who belonged to or with[in] human society in the production worth of its ideas by example; its role in were close to our tradition). of those goods which are necessary for it is to “produce analyses, strategies and On the Class Struggle the satisfaction of our historically and credible proposals. Its members must gain The paper goes on to give a brief socially determined material needs. Zabalaza page 39 theory

History is not the history of ideas. Ideas Marx knew perfectly well that the are backdrops created by real movements revolution aimed at abolishing class. He that can themselves, however, influence knew that class was a matter of production the movements. History is the history relationships: thus, if the working of the antagonisms created by the class seizes the means of production, production relationships. It is the history overturning existing production of the struggle between the classes. relationships to establish equality, class This gives the background for the itself is thereby abolished. Talking of the introduction of the concept of class; but proletariat becoming the dominant class here I have a small quibble. The FdCA joins is, as the FdCA says, a “non-sense”; the Marxists and “the entire radical left” but that is just what Marx did in the in defining classes as “the social groups Manifesto, in one of the great statements that can be identified on the basis of their of his theory and programme. position in the cycle of production and The FdCA points out that Marxists have the distribution of goods”. But what does defended the need for a workers’ state by this imply? Factory workers are engaged pointing to the continuing threat of the in production; railway workers and dock enemies of the revolution, against which workers are engaged in transport, which the workers must defend themselves; is part of distribution. These are different working class – a society of free equals, a and by referring to the need to organise positions in the cycle. But I have never communist society, based on the principle production, which Marxists identify with heard anyone say railway workers and “from each according to ability, to each centralisation. But the paper replies to dock workers are a different class from according to need” – the paper turns these points by examining the history of factory workers. Throughout the history to a discussion of our differences with the Russian Revolution. It points out that of class struggle against capitalism, all other working class movements, and, contrary to Marxist views and practices, these workers have stood side by side in particular, a critique of the Marxists. Makhno’s non-statist popular army was against the common enemy, without Many of these differences centre on the the most successful force in defending worrying about different positions in question of the state; and, as the FdCA the revolution; and that centralised state the cycle of production. This is a small points out, the difference reflects a control of production led to the return of quibble because the real issue becomes serious failure of Marxist analysis. This oppression and exploitation, and to the clear in the same paragraph. What is point is illustrated with a historical irony: alienation of workers from the revolution. fundamental to class is who controls the In 1868, when the Bakuninist Contrary to Marxist predictions, the cycle of production. The capitalists are in International Alliance of Socialist “workers’ state” did not “wither away control; the workers “own only their ability Democracy applied to join the International when it was no longer needed”. Instead, to work, which they sell to the bosses”. Workingmen’s Association [the First as was “foreseen by Bakunin, [Piotr] The FdCA notes that anarchists recognise International], Marx ... requested a Kropotkin, [Errico] Malatesta, [Luigi] the importance of other classes, such as change in its statute: with heavy irony he Fabbri and many other libertarian the peasants, who do not have to sell pointed out that the phrase “equalisation thinkers”, the FdCA points out that the their labour but are nonetheless exploited of the classes” was ambiguous and that state “reproduced the exploitation that and dominated; we believe, contrary to it would have to be corrected to read it was based on”. I might add that this the Marxists, that all such classes have “abolition of the classes”. Bakunin agreed was capitalist exploitation: production a common interest in overthrowing that the phrase was improper and agreed continued to be for monetary exchange capitalism and a part to play in the with the proposed change which better rather than for need, and the Communist struggle. But power is fundamental. Not explained the goal of the revolution. But Party bureaucrats and bosses accumulated that power alone defines class: there are the error committed by Marx and Engels capital through profit, driving continuing hierarchies that are not class structures, in 1848 [in The Communist Manifesto] expansion of production under their own because they are not linked to the was much greater ... What, in fact, can control, through the exploitation of the means of production and do not allow be meant by the proletariat constituting workers. those at the top to systematically exploit itself “as the dominant class”? First of Differentiating Anarchist- those at the bottom for their material all, if the proletariat has taken power, benefit. Classes are not defined by then the revolution or the change of Communism from Other hierarchy alone, nor by “position in the hands with the bourgeoisie will already Claimaints cycle” alone, but by the combination of have taken place and as the aim of the Having taken care of the Marxists, domination and exploitation. The FdCA revolution is, according to everyone, the the FdCA turns, in its final chapter, clearly understands this; perhaps the abolition of classes ... the struggle of the to distinctions within the anarchist problematic sentence merely reflects proletariat becomes its own dissolution movement. It identifies various tendencies: awkward phrasing or even a failure of as a class together with all other classes, Individualists, Educationists, anti- translation from the Italian. In any event, the bourgeoisie heading the list. In second organisationists (referred to as Anarcho- the paper makes it clear that exploitation place, class distinction is not a matter Communists), Insurrectionists, Anarcho- and domination render the dominant and of ethics, somatics or ethnicity, but is Syndicalists and our own tendency of subordinate classes irreconcilable; and based on the different positions which Anarchist Communists. (There are also in a capitalist system, there is plenty of the individual members of a society have the “Libertarian Communists”, discussed scope for confrontation between them, with regard to property relationships. At in an appendix. The FdCA applies this term which we believe the working class can the moment in which individual property to a movement that has arisen since the ultimately win. is abolished, to be substituted by the 1960s and has been particularly important in Italy: a movement that is influenced by Differentiating Anarchist- collective ownership of production, distribution and consumption, there is anarchism but also takes up “elements of Communism from Marxism an effective end to all class-based social Marxist analysis ... such as the inevitability After some discussion of this organisation. of the fall of capitalism once it reached confrontation, and of the objectives of the its highest stage of development, the Zabalaza page 40 theory automatic nature of the struggles with regard to the economic phase, and Black Flame: the Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism (AK a view of the current crisis as being Press, 2009) is the first volume of Counter-Power, a two-volume study of anarchism Capital’s final crisis”. However, the paper by long-standing ZACF militants Michael Schmidt and Lucien van der Walt. The regards this as a recent development, authors’ effort to define anarchism and to develop a historical understanding of saying “Libertarian Communism” was anarchist politics – which “promises to be the definitive synthetic account of originally “synonymous with ‘Anarchist the international anarchist tradition” - is a key inspiration and source for this Communism’ ... until the 1940s”.) article. See insert. Following Michael Schmidt and Lucien van der Walt, in their recently published use of the adjective communist. By that consider even the existence of classes to book Black Flame (see box), I propose stage, though, Anarchist Communists be an unproven fact, if not some Marxist to return to the approach of Bakunin and had already been using the term for invention. Makhno – which is also the approach of around half a century as a synonym of I must note that the term “teleology” the FdCA, although the final chapter of class-struggle Anarchism.” And when the refers to the view that history tends its paper falls short in certain respects. I Bolsheviks took the name, its meaning towards a definite goal: in the case of note that there is, after all, a movement of became twisted: it has come to stand the “Anarcho-Communists” (and, for that the oppressed classes, of great historical for the highly authoritarian, centralised, matter, those of orthodox Marxists and importance, that began with Bakunin and exploitative and repressive states built Leninists, who also take a teleological the trade unions of the First International, by Vladimir Lenin and his imitators, view) this goal would be a free, stateless and has remained pretty consistent in its which have nothing in common with communist society. A wonderful goal, to ideas and practices. A movement based communism in its original meaning. be sure; but the FdCA’s highly pertinent on class struggle, on direct action, on the To be fair, the Leninists tended not to point is that if you think the world is liberation of the workers by the workers, claim that their states were actually going there anyway, there may not be organised federally, horizontally, directly- communist; as Marxist determinists, they that much incentive to work towards it. democratically for this purpose, aiming regarded them as a stage on the road (Alternatively, it may discourage you at the destruction of private property, to communism; and it was in keeping from thinking about what really needs to of capitalism and the state, and at the with their own commitment to this great be done to get there, which, I suspect, establishment of a society of free equals. goal – a commitment that in some cases is part of why Marx was so ready to It is this movement that historically may actually have been sincere – that incorporate the absurdity of a “workers’ gave currency to the name “anarchism”: they designated their organisations as state” into his historical theory.) words and ideas, after all, are shaped by Communist Parties. But to call Bolshevik The picture the FdCA paints of history and by material circumstances. Russia communist is to forget what the “Anarcho-Communists” is a picture of By looking at where tendencies stand in word always meant, to lose sight of political complacency, of expecting the relation to the ideas and practices of this what communism is, and, indeed, of mighty force of History to do all your movement, we can find a way of saying what capitalism is, since I have pointed work for you. The paper attributes this who is an anarchist and who isn’t. out that Bolshevik Russia was capitalist. confusion to Kropotkin, a leading Russian An important point about the working Much effort has been put into taking anarchist thinker at the end of the 19th class anarchist movement is: our ideas the word “communism” away from the century. But I must submit that this is and practices only make sense on the revolutionary workers’ movement. We are somewhat unfair. Certainly there is a very assumption that human beings are, taking back the concept of communism strong teleological element in Kropotkin’s indeed, social animals, not isolated for the working class. thought – a teleology that differs from atomic independent individuals – an Marx’s teleology, most obviously by idea that is as completely absurd as the On the Question of Kropotkin rejecting any positive role for the state. But what shall we do with these words FdCA says it is. This point was made But such teleology is not unusual among once we take them back? Let me return by Bakunin and has been reiterated by anarchists of that time. It can be seen to the FdCA’s efforts. The paper describes many anarchist theorists. It shows why in Bakunin, particularly in his more the views of the “Anarcho-Communists” so-called individualist anarchists cannot philosophical writings, such as God and as follow: be regarded as a genuine anarchist the State. Although the FdCA is correct Anarchism was no longer the goal of tendency. to say teleological thinking can lead to the conscious efforts on the part of men The FdCA draws an uneasy distinction political errors, Bakunin and others show and women to organise themselves for between “anarcho-communism” and that it need not automatically do so. their collective happiness, but only the “anarchist communism”: uneasy as both And with Kropotkin, it did not – at least final and teleologically predetermined suggest communism combined with not so obviously or to such an extent stage in historical development (as we anarchism. I have identified anarchism as the FdCA suggests. Far from “placing shall see, somewhat like the dialectic as a historical movement of the working no importance in the class struggle”, materialism of Stalinist orthodoxy which class, aimed at the destruction by the Kropotkin was deeply committed to it. His stemmed from the same positivist workers themselves of oppressive and book The Conquest of Bread opens with vein). The result of all this ... was that exploitative structures. What, then, is a penetrating critique of capitalism and all forms of organisation are not only communism? I must note that the original moves on to a detailed discussion of how unnecessary (given that the course of use of the word was – and is – in relation the workers can realise their material events cannot be seriously influenced) to the world we are fighting for: a society needs in a revolutionary situation – but actually dangerous, as they represent in which production is run according to beginning with the need to expropriate an obstruction for the free flow of the the principle “from each according to the expropriators. The writer of this book process’ spontaneity and impede the ability, to each according to need”; hence was not one to dismiss class struggle, and appearance of the final stage in the a society without exploitation, without shows no signs of being one to dismiss development of humanity ... As a result private property, money or exchange. The organisation. (See box on page 41 for of their deterministic vision, Anarcho- FdCA says: “It was only after the Russian a further explanation of Kropotkin’s Communists place no importance in Revolution of October 1917 that Marxist positions) the class struggle. Furthermore, they parties all over the world returned to the It is true that later in his life, Zabalaza page 41 theory

Kropotkin grew to be disconnected from in conflict with the views and practices (Émile Pouget, Fernand Pelloutier, Pierre the mass anarchist movement, to the of the anarchist movement, as I and Monatte, and others) found a way out point that on the outbreak of World War my ZACF comrades have analysed it. through the formation of the “Bourses du I, he decisively broke with anarchist Individualists and Educationists may call Travail” and the syndicates and thereby principles by backing British and French themselves anarchists, and associate brought Anarchism back to its natural imperialism against German aggression. with the anarchist movement, but that element, the proletariat, which led to a But the FdCA makes no reference to any does not make them anarchists, and it new and profound method of struggle such changing views. It traces the ideas does not make their tendencies anarchist and organisation. Despite this, there of “Anarcho-Communists” to Kropotkin tendencies. (See box on page 42) are still today those who as a result of and identifies him quite straightforwardly And the same goes for “Anarcho- a childish theoretical simplification, as their precursor and founder. Indeed, Communists”. The fact that they trace hold that gains made by the unions are it is easy to see how teleological anti- their views to Kropotkin – or to their own ephemeral and who continue to preach organisationists could turn to Kropotkin distorted picture of Kropotkin – does not the idea of propaganda by the deed. They for support for their views – but in so make them anarchists, and I won’t call are mistaken twice over. Firstly, when doing, they utterly fail to take note of the them anarchists. But if everyone knows they think that syllogisms can cancel depth of his thought. And I am sorry to them by that name in Italy, perhaps history – in other words they believe, say that in relegating Kropotkin to the there’s no avoiding it. with purely abstract reasoning, that as “Anarcho-Communist” ranks, the FdCA The FdCA notes a similarity between long as capitalism exists there can be does the same. the “Kropotkinists” and the Insurrectionist no improvement in the living conditions As for the name “Anarcho-Communist”, Anarchists, a tendency that gained of the masses even where there have no doubt there is a historical basis for it: prominence towards the end of the 19th been labour struggles. Secondly, they I must suppose that this is the name by century. The paper explains: are under the illusion that some external which holders of such views are known The hope was that the spread of violent example can be more attractive and in Italy, and perhaps in some other acts directed at the pompous bourgeoisie convincing than long, tiring educational countries. Words are shaped by history, of the period would provide an example activity within the day-to-day struggles. and to some extent we need to respect which would rapidly be imitated thereby The similarity to “Anarcho- this. But it is not a usage that I could transforming the insurrectionary spark Communists” – as the FdCA defines them recommend to the global movement, into an immense revolutionary blaze. – lies in the dismissal of large-scale class outside Italy. Certainly teleological – and This was the period of the bloody acts of struggle under capitalism, and in the other – anti-organisationist views can the likes of François-Claudius Köhingstein substitution of abstract general historical be found in many individuals associated (better known as Ravachol), Bonnot, principles for the hard work of analysis and with the anarchist movement. But such Émile Henry and many others. France, organisation. But there are differences. views, particularly when taken to the in fact, though at the centre of the Insurrectionists, after all, do engage in extreme of dismissing class struggle as insurrectionalist wave was also the place acts of struggle against the bourgeoisie, the FdCA describes them, are clearly where class-struggle Anarchist militants and they do organise themselves –

ON PIOTR KROPOTKIN’S IDEOLOGY: 1) On his turn from insurrectionism: see Daniel Guerin’s Anarchism chapter 3 at: http://www.infoshop.org/ library/Daniel_Guerin:Anarchism3 “Kropotkin deserves credit for being one of the first to confess his errors and to recognise the sterility of ‘propaganda by the deed.’ In a series of articles which appeared in 1890 he affirmed ‘that one must be with the people, who no longer want isolated acts, but want men of action inside their ranks.’ He warned his readers against ‘the illusion that one can defeat the coalition of exploiters with a few pounds of explosives.’ He proposed a return to mass trade unionism like that of which the First International had been the embryo and propagator: ‘Monster unions embracing millions of proletarians’.” 2) Kropotkin versus Russian purist “anarcho-communists” [From Black Flame] Kropotkin [produced] Kleb i Volya for Russian distribution to combat the “Anarchist Communist” tendency within syndicalism. [i] He believed revolutionary unions were “absolutely necessary”.[ii] [i] Paul Avrich, The Russian Anarchists pp.54, 61, 63, 84, 107; also see Avrich, Anarchist Portraits p. 68 [ii] Quoted in John Crump, Hatta Shuzo and Pure Anarchism in Interwar Japan p.10. Contrary to Alain Pengam, it is no illusion to speak of a syndicalist Kropotkin: Pengam, Anarcho-Communism, p.249 3) Kropotkin on organisational dualism: [From Black Flame; for more, see etc. “Shall We Concern Ourselves with ...”, and Revolutionary Minorities] “For Kropotkin, it was the ‘party which has made the most revolutionary propaganda and which has shown the most spirit and daring’ that ‘will be listened to on the day when it is necessary to act, to march in front in order to realise the revolution’ [i]. He considered it necessary ‘to plan for the penetration of the masses and their stimulation by libertarian militants, in much the same way as the Alliance acted within the International’ [ii]. Rejecting the notion that the unions were spontaneously revolutionary [and without need of a specific organisation marching alongside them], Kropotkin argued: ‘there is need of the other element Malatesta speaks of and which Bakunin always professed’ [iii]. Malatesta had argued that ‘Bakunin expected a great deal from the International; yet, at the same time he created the Alliance, a secret organisation with a well-determined programme – atheist, socialist, anarchist, revolutionary’ [iv].” [i] P. Kropotkin, [1880] 1970, “The Spirit of Revolt”, In Kropotkin’s Revolutionary Pamphlets: a collection of writings by , edited by R.N. Baldwin. New York: Dover Publications p. 43 [ii] Nettlau, A Short History of Anarchism p. 277, emphasis in the original [iii] Quoted in Ibid. p. 281, emphasis in the original [iv] Quoted in Ibid. p. 130 4) Kropotkin on the class struggle: from Anarchist Communism: Its Basis and Principles, 1887, http://www. fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/kropotkin/ancom/ . This text strongly illustrates Kropotkin’s teleological thinking, but at the same time shows his understanding of class and belief in class struggle. From An Appeal to the Young, http://www.dis.org/daver/anarchism/kropotkin/atty.html Zabalaza page 42 theory even if we agree that organisation in and Revolutionary Syndicalists lay their sure if everyone who calls themselves small groups to carry out bloody acts of trust in the spontaneous evolution of the “anarcho-syndicalist” would reject the revenge is not, in fact, an effective way of proletarian masses and that accordingly if need for a specific political organisation. building the revolutionary struggle. And the labour unions are left alone, sooner or The ZACF tends to follow the usage of the historically, the insurrectionist tendency later they will arrive at the decisive clash Platform: “Whereas communism, i.e. the very clearly belongs to the broad with the boss class. Malatesta already free society of equal workers, is the goal anarchist movement. The FdCA reinforces opposed this idea, held by Monatte, of the anarchist struggle, syndicalism, i.e. the link between insurrectionism and in 1907 at the International Congress the revolutionary movement of industrial “Anarcho-Communism” by pointing out of Amsterdam. He clarified how the workers based on trades [we would rather that Kropotkin supported the strategy proletariat’s associations for resistance say, on industries], is but one of the forms of propaganda by the deed – but this, would inevitably slide into reformism, of the revolutionary class struggle.” But again, is unfair to Kropotkin, since many thus blurring sight of the goals ... The we recognise that there are a variety of other leading anarchists, not all of them historically proven decline of all unions views on the role of the unions in the followers of his views, were present at which were born revolutionary (starting struggle. the congress that adopted this strategy with Monatte’s own CGT), has led some Identifying these different views with in 1881. Insurrectionism enjoyed a great Anarcho-Syndicalists to seek the answer particular tendencies is a lot trickier. deal of support within the anarchist not in political organisation, but in the Let us look at our own tendency, the movement for some time; many leading creation of unions which are based on tendency of the ZACF and the FdCA, anarchists moved towards it, only to see a pre-determined revolutionary idea. which our comrades identify as “Anarchist its failure and then move away from it. In other words, to create unions which Communism”. Their paper rightly Indeed, Van der Walt and Schmidt identify are exclusively composed of conscious, identifies Bakunin as the founder of this insurrectionism as one distinct tendency revolutionary elements. The result is a tendency; but also notes (in Chapter 3) within the anarchist movement, a minority strange mix of mass organisation and that he was a collectivist rather than a tendency, in contrast to the majority political organisation which is basically communist! (Bakunin may have been tendency of “mass anarchism”, of broad- an organisation of anarchists who set uncomfortable with communism partly based class struggle movements, which themselves up to do union work. In this because in his day it was associated is the approach favoured by the ZACF way the obstacle has not been removed, with Marxist authoritarianism; it was only and the FdCA. (See box) but avoided, as the link which connects later that a fully communist anarchist the masses to the revolutionary strategy theory was developed. And as the FdCA Differentiating Anarchist- is missing, unless of course it happens notes, his writing is unsystematic and Communism from Anarcho- to be the resurrection of the idea of an scattered because he spent most of Syndicalism external example which contaminates his life on the barricades: it may not Within the mass anarchist movement, the masses by some process of osmosis. be easy to tell where exactly he stood a divide is commonly drawn between It is certainly true that many who on the organisation of production in a “anarchist communism” and “anarcho- identify themselves as “anarcho- free society.). It seems odd to call your syndicalism” – but there seems to be little syndicalists” have fallen into one or the tendency “communist” when its founder clarity on what divides them. I will not go other of the above-mentioned errors; appears not to have been a communist. into the subtleties, but note how the FdCA but although these ways of drawing the Here again, there is some historical points to some genuine distinctions: distinction are quite widespread, I am not precedent: many in our tendency have, Anarcho-Syndicalists of various types at all sure if they are universal. I am not indeed, identified themselves as anarchist REDEFINING ANARCHIST CURRENTS: Michael Schmidt writes: “There is strangely, in the view of myself and Lucien van der Walt, detailed in our book Black Flame: the Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism, no historically definable “anarchist-communist” current at all. No doubt the WSM in Ireland, the FdCA and others of our tendency would be surprised at this position, but it has a solid grounding in historical fact: that “pure anarchist communists” like Hatta Shuzo of Japan were in fact not anti-syndicalist (merely recognised the limitations of the single, mass organisation without the specific organisation, as did Errico Malatesta and others) and in fact worked within the syndicalist movement to reunite the “anarchist communist” Zenkoku Jiren with the “anarcho-syndicalist” Nihon Jikyo. So if even the “purists” were not anti-syndicalist, and the “anti-organisationists” like Luigi Galleani were in fact organised, albeit on a smaller affinity-group scale, who is it in fact, that is opposed to the mass line approach that the majority of the historical anarchist movement adopted? “Of the anarchists who can rightfully claim that title by their revolutionary free-communist class orientation, the only ones who reject the mass line are those who believe in the uselessness of reforms, believing that the “revolutionary gymnasium” of union organising etc only saps the workers’ strength through the infection of bourgeois norms, and draws them into fatal compromises with the state, capital and the elitist project (here the ZACF prefers the FdCA’s confidence that revolutionary ideas can infect the class orgtanisations instead). Anarchist-insurrectionists find their solution to class mobilisation in the precipitation of spontaneous and voluntary mass revolt by catalytic deeds. Although this position comes close to some left-communist and some council communist positions, there is nothing inherently un-anarchist about their analysis, although just as the mass line can succumb to reformism, so the insurgent line can succumb to substitutionism. “However, Lucien and I accepted that in many cases, anarchist insurgency and guerrilla warfare took place not in isolation, but as the defensive arms of mass popular organisations. Here we may give honourable mention to the fighters of the Organización Popular Revolucionaria-33 (OPR-33) in Uruguay which acted in defence of wildcat strikes by the CNT union and other popular mobilisations against neo-fascist repression in 1971-1976, of Resistencia Libertaria (RL) in Argentina which defended worker’s autonomy against the ultra-right which organised the murderous Galtieri military coup in 1976, of the Movimiento Ibérica Libertaria (MIL) which operated underground in Spain against the Francoist dictatorship in 1971-1974, and of the Workers’ Liberation Group (Shagila) of Iraq and Scream of the People (CHK) of Iran which defended the factory soviets (shoras) and grassroots neighbourhood committees (kommitehs) during the Iranian Revolution of 1978-1979. A more familiar example to most would be the Los Solidarios group in Spain in the 1920s was not merely running around assassinating people at whim, but that they had been formed by the famed anarcho-syndicalist CNT union federation as a secret, yet official, defensive arm responding to real and deadly repression. Zabalaza page 43 theory communists; and many organisations syndicalists and communists. That is not needs of the working class and to of our tendency today use the term in to say there are no distinctive threads naturally prefer more welfarist systems their names – including the Northeastern within the tangle of the mass anarchist over more austere ones. This is an Federation of Anarcho-Communists in the movement: clearly there are, and the important point for many of the struggles USA, as well as the FdCA, the Melbourne thread that runs from Bakunin to (among in which the ZACF is engaged. As popular Anarchist Communist Group in Australia others) the ZACF and the FdCA is one of movements in South Africa today fight and the ZACF. But it still seems odd to them. (We like to think it is a particularly for free housing, water and electricity, use this name for our tendency, when coherent and important one.) we consistently call for the use of direct (a) it includes militants who did not self- action in these struggles; but we hope to describe as communists, notably its Conclusion achieve these things within capitalism, founder; and (b) there are anarchists who I have devoted much attention to and we know that it is only the state are communists but do not belong to our the flaws in the FdCA’s classification that can reasonably provide them – at tendency. Why not identify ourselves as of anarchist tendencies; but the fact this juncture, and until the means of life organisational dualists, especifistas, or, remains that the ideas that the paper are socialised. Another important point for the more old-fashioned among us, refers to are ideas that really exist, and – on which the ZACF has much to learn, Platformists? are generally in need of critique; and its notably from the FdCA – is the need for This is one example of the difficulty criticisms are entirely on target. If the a programme, for definite short-term in drawing divisions within the mass FdCA’s map of the terrain is less than and medium-term objectives, based on anarchist movement. Can we come perfect (and whose map could not stand a thorough analysis, including economic up with a really neat classification some improvement?), this does not stop analysis, of the existing situation. In this incorporating such questions as who is our comrades from directing their fire connection, the FdCA notes the value a communist and who isn’t; who doesn’t with perfect accuracy at just the targets of tactical and strategic alliances with want to engage in workplace struggles, they need to hit. The only significant militants of other tendencies, pointing who does, and in what way; who rejects misfiring is in the case of Kropotkin. out: “Anarchist Communists are so sure a specific organisation, who supports it, Nor is the discussion of anarchist of their historical ends, of their strategy and of those who support it, who prefers tendencies confined to shooting down for obtaining them and of the steps they a specific organisation of tendency and confusionists: it includes important must take today, that they do not fear who (like Volin) opts for an organisation of positive points. Among these, I note the any impure contact contaminating them. synthesis? I doubt if this is truly possible, need for anarchists to defend in the pre- On the contrary, they believe that they or if it would throw much light on the revolutionary period certain roles of more can contaminate others.” history and practice of anarchism, on “progressive” states: in particular the This is just one part of our comrades’ how the mass movement has interacted welfare state, which enables “a minimum very thorough and deep analysis. Much with the system of production, and on redistribution of wealth in favour of the of this review has been devoted to weak how the militant minority has interacted workers; as the result of decades of points in their paper, and more could be with the working-class mass. Hence, struggles they have allowed the conflict said on these; but far more still could be Van der Walt and Schmidt stick with to be regulated for the protection of said on its strong points. And on these, minority insurrectionism and majority the weakest”. Not to say that the state A Question of Class is best left to speak mass anarchism as the main distinction should not be “abolished right from the for itself. and do not try to draw such messy and first moment of the revolution”, but to be Full version of this commentary soon unfortunate lines as between, say, aware in daily struggles of the immediate to be available at www.anarkismo.net

“Other than the anarchist-insurrectionists, there remains only the “classless individualists” who, we of our tendency are all agreed, by denying the social nature of humanity and the necessity for class struggle for socialism-from-below, break with the foundations of anarchism and are thus non-anarchist, while the “philosophical educationists,” where they do not deny the class struggle, are simply poor anarchists in that they have withdrawn from social activism. Thus we say, “anarchist-communism” at base is simply a synonym for what today is often called “” and mostly historically adheres to the mass line which includes syndicalist approaches. “The only further distinction then becomes between “anarcho-syndicalism” that defines specifically as anarchist (such as our comrades of the CNT-France and others), which has the strength of recognising its anarchist roots, but the weakness of not being able to embrace all workers on the basis of economic commonality – because it is a mass organisation trying to be at the same time a specific organisation, and “revolutionary syndicalism” that does not define itself as anarchist (the IWW [Industrial Workers of the World] and others), which has the disadvantage that it will attract reformists and state-socialists into its ranks, but the advantage that it can embrace all workers (although the IWW often also suffers from the conundrum of trying to be sufficient in itself without an affiliated specific anarchist organisation). Other than that, there are also specific organisations that do see syndicalism as inherently reformist and therefore a dead loss, but most are of our tendency which see organisational dualism as crucial. This is the crux of the argument between the International Workers’ Association (IWA) and those of our tendency: the IWA sees syndicalism alone as sufficiently revolutionary because their unions are specifically anarchist, while we believe syndicalism should be non-specific because of the class nature of trade unions, but as a result needs to be allied to specific organisations which provide anarchist content. One of the determining factors in which argument is correct is, crudely, the numbers: the IWA declines while the tendency today represented in the organisations of the anarkismo project and the unaffiliated syndicalist unions, grows.” James Pendlebury comments: “There is a bit more to say about the ‘educationists’. The FdCA defines this supposed tendency as those who hold ‘that education can suffice to change man’s nature, even before changing the material conditions of existence’. That is, they deny class struggle as a key factor in history. Schmidt allows for such a position, but also emphasises those who ‘do not deny the class struggle [but] are simply poor anarchists in that they have withdrawn from social activism’. No doubt both these approaches have their adherents – and there are probably those who sit somewhere in between. But the important point, from the perspective of Schmidt, Van der Walt and myself, is that neither approach can be legitimately regarded as a distinct anarchist tendency.” Where We Stand

We, the working class, produce the world’s wealth. We ought to enjoy the benefits. We want to abolish the system of capitalism that places wealth and power in the hands of a few, and replace it with workers self-management and socialism. We do not mean the lie called ‘socialism’ practised in Russia, China, and other police states - the system in those countries was/is no more than another form of capitalism. We stand for a new society where there will be no bosses or bureaucrats. A society that will be run in a truly democratic way by working people, through councils in the workplaces and communities. We want to abolish authoritarian relationships and replace them with control from the bottom up - not the top down. All the industries, all the means of production and distribution will be commonly owned, and placed under the management of those working in them. Production will be co-ordinated, organised and planned by the federation of elected and recallable workplace committees, not for profit but to meet our needs. The guiding principle will be “from each according to ability, to each according to need”. We are opposed to all coercive authority, we believe that the only limit on the freedom of the individual is that their freedom does not encroach on the freedom of others. We do not ask to be made rulers nor do we intend to seize power “on behalf of the working class”. Instead, we hold that socialism can only be created by the mass of ordinary people. Anything less is bound to lead to no more than replacing one set of bosses with another. We are opposed to the state because it is not neutral, it cannot be made to serve our interests. The structures of the state are only necessary when a minority seeks to rule over the majority. We can create our own structures, which will be open and democratic, to ensure the efficient running of everyday life. We are proud to be part of the tradition of , of anarchism. The anarchist movement has taken root in the working class of many countries because it serves our interests - not the interests of the power seekers and professional politicians. In short we fight for the immediate needs and interests of our class under the existing set up, while seeking to encourage the necessary understanding and activity to overthrow capitalism and its state, and lead to the birth of a free and equal (anarchist) society.

International Multi-Lingual Site for Anarchist Communist News and Discussion

The ZACF is proud to announce that volume one of Counter-power, our dynamic new global work, Black Flame: the Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism, by Lucien van der Walt and Michael Schmidt, is now available from AK Press: http://www.akpress.org/ “This book fulfills a daunting task. Covering anarchism in all parts of the world and emphatically tying it to class struggle, the authors present a highly original and challenging account of the movement, its actions and ideas. This work is a must for everybody interested in nonauthoritarian social movements.” — Prof Bert Altena, Rotterdam University. Black Flame will be launched soon in Joburg.

Afrique sans Chaines

The website of the Confédération National du Travail’s (CNT’s) French paper Afrique sans chaînes (Africa Without Chains), the quarterly French-language African sister journal to Zabalaza, where you can download copies of the magazine in .pdf format. www.cnt-f.org/international/spip.php?rubrique33