Communique about arson attacks in Salonica, solidarity with anarchists in Chile

[Delenda Carthago]

Communique about arson attacks in Salonica, solidarity with anarchists prisoners in Chile
Sunday, August 29, 2010

This old world is struggling to stay alive. Its engine power and legacy is violence. Its most ruthless, most barbaric but at the same time its truest face is revealed with the suppression of every resistance, every threat that is bred inside of it.

Lets be done with the stupid arguments that come aside the police operations for the abolishment of -outersystematic- violence. Whoever claims so categorically that they are against violence, is simply lying to others and himself.

Violence is the basic substance of this world.

It is located in our perception for the space that is defined by the borders between our houses and neighbourhoods that form a controlled and predictable environment.It characterizes the rhythms of everyday life by cutting up time and selling it to everyone that enjoys economic superiority.

It determines relationships, through segregation and unconditional assimilation which leads to the division of people. The most brutal result though is the rhetorical justification of the above that happens with the excuse of a liberty while in reality its our own shackles.

So we move offensively as well, violently, without letting it totally define our existence. Having knowledge of our contradictions, we aim at the hypocrisy that seems to be the only thing that keeps the balance in this social field. We know that the choices we make will define, on a great scale, the rest of our lives. That's why we don't act foolishly. The possible consequences do not discourage our action. Our choices are based on conscience and what we've lived through, they have a genuine base. By discovering people that have made the same choices as us we discover comrades. With our common desires as a starting point we demolish the authoritarian myths about criminal organizations of maniacs and we become a piece of the “international terrorist organization” that consists of insurrectional individuals.

So we decided to use our own diplomacy, torching 5 vehicles of the diplomatic force in the early hours of Saturday 28th august in Thessaloniki.

We dedicate our attack to all the Chilean comrades that since the 14th of august are being attacked by the Chilean state (at this moment 8 of them are in maximum security prisons while the other 6 have been temporarily released with conditions), as well as to the comrades that are being persecuted for the Conspiracy Cells of Fire case (on august 31st is the court of appeals to decide the continuation or not of the imprisonment of P.Masouras and H.Hadjimihelakis).

We chose this way and period of time because we wanted to define our own field of combat, outside the coincidence of T.I.E.(thessaloniki international exhibition) and the festival of oppression by the Ministry to protect the citizen in collaboration with local authorities, that will take place in the city streets.

We believe that explosions of collective spontaneity, as useful as they are, are strategically wrong to be applied in fields of combat cut to fit the oppressive mechanisms. We believe that in such mass demonstrations the bet is organization -from before and not on the spot- of defence and offence so its possible to clash in real time and with reversed -to our interest this time- terms.

Diplomatic Force of Arsonists

(For the intensification of internationalist solidarity)
actforfreedomnow.blogspot.com/2010/08/responsibility-claim-f... (http://actforfreedomnow.blogspot.com/2010/08/responsibility-claim-from-thessaloniki.html)

[Nachie]

We believe that explosions of collective spontaneity, as useful as they are, are strategically wrong to be applied in fields of combat cut to fit the oppressive mechanisms. We believe that in such mass demonstrations the bet is organization -from before and not on the spot- of defence and offence so its possible to clash in real time and with reversed -to our interest this time- terms.

This is horribly worded/translated, but nonetheless extraordinarily important!

[Delenda Carthago]

This is horribly worded/translated, but nonetheless extraordinarily important!
if there is something you dont understand,i can help...

[Nachie]

No I totally got it, I just found the wording a little awkward and had to read it three times before it stuck (kinda reminded me of Marx that way)

I absolutely agree with what they said, and think more attention should be paid specifically to the implications of that comment.

Thanks though! :)

[black magick hustla]

in b4 the messianic social rupture

[Devrim]

What does burning five cars have to do with class struggle?

Devrim

[Delenda Carthago]

What does burning five cars have to do with class struggle?

Devrim
5 cars of working class people?nothing.
5 cars of chilean diplomats ?i dunno...maybe it applys presure for the whole situation in Chile right now...

[nuisance]

What does burning five cars have to do with class struggle?

Devrim
Attacking the cars of members of the political elite that has a hand in the international relations of a nation? Gee....I don't know. But I sure do understand that you have a very one dimensional view of class struggle.

[Leo]

5 cars of chilean diplomats ?i dunno...maybe it applys presure for the whole situation in Chile right now...

Maybe if the diplomats were in the cars.

Still, has got nothing to do with class struggle.

[Devrim]

Attacking the cars of members of the political elite that has a hand in the international relations of a nation? Gee....I don't know. But I sure do understand that you have a very one dimensional view of class struggle.

Yes, I do. I have this view of the class struggle that involves classes struggling against one another.

I asked exactly the same question to the Maoists on here after some Naxalities had shot a few police men.

So I ask again, what does it have to do with class struggle? Does it increase confidence amongst workers? Does it make workers more willing to fight? Or is it exactly the same thing that Maoists are doing, albeit on a much smaller pathetic scale?

What I do actually find amusing is that for all the anarchist criticism of vanguardism, which is based on a critique of substitıtionalism after all, there are still people who call themselves anarchists who are quite happy to support things like this.

Devrim

[zimmerwald1915]

What I do actually find amusing is that for all the anarchist criticism of vanguardism, which is based on a critique of substitıtionalism after all, there are still people who call themselves anarchists who are quite happy to support things like this.
Really what's more interesting is the comparative worth that the Diplomatic Force of Arsonists gives to their own actions and the "bursts of collective spontineity". To me, and I might be reading the text entirely wrong, that whole paragraph is a justification of substitutionism, how the actions of a very few "comrades" (who, not coincidentally, came to their convictions by their own individual paths, and found each other along the way) somehow have more worth than the actions and consciousness, developed along the way by struggle and collective discussion and action, of the working class. I doubt very much that the present situation is one that gives the decisive role of the class struggle to groups such as these rather than the working class as a whole.

[Delenda Carthago]

how the fuck can an arson like that be vanguardism????

[bcbm]

to be substitutionist wouldn't the anarchists have to be doing this on behalf of the working class? as far as i can tell this is anarchists acting for themselves in solidarity with other anarchists, not in the name of the working class.

[Omnia Sunt Communia]

Attacking the cars of members of the political elite that has a hand in the international relations of a nation? Gee....I don't know. But I sure do understand that you have a very one dimensional view of class struggle.

Plus the entire system of automotive transportation is an instrument of capitalist exploitation, apolitical masses smash cars all the time as an obvious expression of their subjugation.


Yes, I do. I have this view of the class struggle that involves classes struggling against one another.

That is the circumstance that prevails under the entire capitalist world. "Class struggle" is not something that has to be created, it's something intrinsic to capitalist conditions...."class struggle" is certainly not defined by dramatic mass assemblies, those are simply symptoms, no different than clandestine insurrectionist violence.


I asked exactly the same question to the Maoists on here after some Naxalities had shot a few police men.Which means regardless of ideology you will always be quick to denounce any marginally successful revolutionary movement without offering any coherent alternative.


Does it increase confidence amongst workers?
Does it make workers more willing to fight?Among those who will actually sympathize with an offensive attack against the state? Certainly. Among those who will always stand with their class-enemy? No, but who cares?


Or is it exactly the same thing that Maoists are doing, albeit on a much smaller pathetic scale?It's pretty sad that a member of one of the many irrelevant and marginalized "left-communist" cults in the Anglosphere, which have beached themselves on the shore of marginalization and isolation years ago, is describing the robust social revolutionary movement in Chile as "pathetic". What do they have to learn from our irrelevant and flaccid example?


What I do actually find amusing is that for all the anarchist criticism of vanguardism, which is based on a critique of substitıtionalism after all, there are still people who call themselves anarchists who are quite happy to support things like this.The problem is that "anarchist criticism of vanguardism" is a naked pretense for cowardice and irresponsibility. The point is to form a vanguard to agitate for proletarian self-emancipation, not centralized dictatorship of the party managers. It's in Bakunin, folks.

[Devrim]

how the fuck can an arson like that be vanguardism????

I don't think anybody said it was vanguardism. What I said is that is was substitutionist, which is at the heart of the anarchist criticism of vanguardism.

Substitutionism means substituting the actions of a small group for the actions of the working class. I think that this is a fair criticism of these events.

Oh, and please don't swear at me. It really isn't very politie.

Devrim

[Omnia Sunt Communia]

Substitutionism means substituting the actions of a small group for the actions of the working class.

That's a fairly incoherent and infantile criticism. The majority of the working class is currently hypnotized by bourgeois ideological hegemony...any action within this context is "substitutionalist". The point of partisan actions is to awaken the revolutionary consciousness in the majority of our class. You're also using the term "working class" as shorthand for some sort of exclusive club of ideological purity rather than an all-encompassing term for those who objectively stand to benefit from the overthrow of capital.

What's at the heart of the issue is backseat driving by the social-pacifists of the metropolitan left

[Devrim]

That is the circumstance that prevails under the entire capitalist world. "Class struggle" is not something that has to be created, it's something intrinsic to capitalist conditions...."class struggle" is certainly not defined by dramatic mass assemblies, those are simply symptoms, no different than clandestine insurrectionist violence.

Class struggle isn't something that has to be created. It is something that is intrinsic to capitalist conditions. This doesn't mean that a few anarchists smashing up a few cars has anything to do with it.


Which means regardless of ideology you will always be quick to denounce any marginally successful revolutionary movement without offering any coherent alternative.

No, it means despite there being class struggle in India, at quite a high level in some cases, I don't think that middle class intellectuals leading peasant gangs in attacking policemen has anything at all to do with it.


Among those who will actually sympathize with an offensive attack against the state? Certainly. Among those who will always stand with their class-enemy? No, but who cares?

I'd imagine that it just doesn't relate to most people at all.


It's pretty sad that a member of one of the many irrelevant and marginalized "left-communist" cults in the Anglosphere, which have beached themselves on the shore of marginalization and isolation years ago, are describing the robust social revolutionary movement in Chile as "pathetic". What do they have to learn from our irrelevant and flaccid example?

No, I described people smashing a few cars in Greece as pathetic. By the way, I don't live in the 'Anglosphere'.

Devrim

[Devrim]

to be substitutionist wouldn't the anarchists have to be doing this on behalf of the working class? as far as i can tell this is anarchists acting for themselves in solidarity with other anarchists, not in the name of the working class.

So isn't it relevant to ask what it has to do with the class struggle?

Devrim

[Devrim]

That's a fairly incoherent and infantile criticism. The majority of the working class is currently hypnotized by bourgeois ideological hegemony...any action within this context is "substitutionalist". The point of partisan actions is to awaken the revolutionary consciousness in the majority of our class. You're also using the term "working class" as shorthand for some sort of exclusive club of ideological purity rather than an all-encompassing term for those who objectively stand to benefit from the overthrow of capital.

What's at the heart of the issue is backseat driving by the social-pacifists of the metropolitan left

This whole argument sounds like a return to 'propaganda by deed' to me. Of course it ignores the fact that Greece has recently experienced reasonably large scale workers struggles.

Devrim

[Zanthorus]

The problem is that "anarchist criticism of vanguardism" is a naked pretense for cowardice and irresponsibility. The point is to form a vanguard to agitate for proletarian self-emancipation, not centralized dictatorship of the party managers. It's in Bakunin, folks.

Bakunin also argued for revolutionary dictatorship.


A more serious study of Bakunin would demonstrate that he never was the populist, the democrat or the anti-authoritarian that official "anarchism" made of him afterwards (and they even made a republican of him); a scrupulous investigating would, on the contrary show that he was a systematic partisan of internationalist organisational structures with a clearly revolutionary program. Moreover, as all genuine revolutionaries, he was induced by the very movement to admit and assume the necessity of dictatorship to put an end to capitalism; even if, unlike Marx and Engels, who always overtly claimed the latter as dictatorship of the proletariat, Bakunin was in favour of a more conspiratorial, secretive and elitist conception of the revolutionary dictatorshiphttp://gci-icg.org/english/freepopstate.htm

[Omnia Sunt Communia]

This doesn't mean that a few anarchists smashing up a few cars has anything to do with it.

All conflicts within capitalism can be characterized as "class struggle", it just depends on what direction the struggle is taking. Chile is not as much of an embarrassment right now as, say, the US.

Right now in Chile there are symptoms of acute mass-resentment. (Militant student demonstrations of up to thousands, etc.) The conditions are correct for the forces of the libertarian left to take a position of leadership, and partisan acts are a crucial tactic.


middle class intellectuals leading peasant gangs in attacking policemen has anything at all to do with [class struggle].Any incident in which "peasant gangs" attack police officers is obviously an example of class conflict. I agree that the Naxalist movement is under the parasitic control of "middle class intellectuals", however you are in denial over the current amount of popular support. (Which I understand, the comparative popularity of Leninism is depressing) I disapprove of the direction the class struggle is taking in India, but to say it's *not* class conflict is infantile. (If we lived in India our jobs would be to redirect the class conflict, not to denounce it)


I'd imagine that it just doesn't relate to most people at all.Most average people from my experience are misanthropic, pessimistic, and are bottling up large amounts of resentment and rage...


I described people smashing a few cars in Greece as pathetic.I presume from your icon that you are affiliated with the ICC, you have to admit that the "substitutionalist" efforts of the anarchists in both Greece and Chile are more sucessful in engaging the unconscious majority of our class than the efforts of the entire ICC across the globe over the past several decades...

Before you take my comments as disrespectful, I would like to clarify that I have nothing against you as a person, but it is my experience that your organization criticizes, often with irrationality and factual falsehoods, every moderately successful insurgency without providing by way of example any successful alternative.


By the way, I don't live in the 'Anglosphere'.I apologize. Are you Turkish? If so, how is the "struggle" of the ICC going in Turkey compared to the popularity of Marxist-Leninist separatist groups?

[Delenda Carthago]

I don't think anybody said it was vanguardism. What I said is that is was substitutionist, which is at the heart of the anarchist criticism of vanguardism.

Substitutionism means substituting the actions of a small group for the actions of the working class. I think that this is a fair criticism of these events.

Oh, and please don't swear at me. It really isn't very politie.

Devrim
It has nothing to do about that.DOing something does not in any way means it stops or substitutes the work of the working class.On the contrary,actions like that are easily copied by anyone(its not like armed guerilla that by nature is a thing that is about few).

Matter of fact,about a week ago,there was a claim of responsibility for an arson made by workers in a corporation that sells clothes to a car of the head of security,for being a snitch on the workers.

Direct action is a collateral in the workers stuggle for the last century and more.

Dude,you as a turk,more than everyone else here know that greeks swear.This is what we do.Nothing personal...:rolleyes:

[Zanthorus]

I presume from your icon that you are affiliated with the ICC, you have to admit that the "substitutionalist" efforts of the anarchists in both Greece and Chile are more sucessful in engaging the unconscious majority of our class than the efforts of the entire ICC across the globe over the past several decades...

Before you take my comments as disrespectful, I would like to clarify that I have nothing against you as a person, but it is my experience that your organization criticizes, often with irrationality and factual falsehoods, every moderately successful insurgency without providing by way of example any successful alternative.

I can't really speak for the ICC. But what I can say is that your perspective is much too immediatist. Sometimes the best strategy in the long term doesn't get instant results. It was in the name of "conquering the masses" after all, that the post-1921 comintern began it's slide downards. The fact is that the level which the class struggle has reached at the present time is simply nowhere near enough to be considering any kind of revolution as on the agenda and you're somewhat deluded if you think it is. Our model at the present should be more the Communist Correspondence Committee of Brussels or the Italian Left Fraction in Exile, engaging in self-criticism and theoretical clarification and debate while fostering solidarity and carrying out propaganda in preparation for when the struggle takes an upturn and "conquering the masses" becomes a viable tactic.

[Devrim]

Any incident in which "peasant gangs" attack police officers is obviously an example of class conflict. I agree that the Naxalist movement is under the parasitic control of "middle class intellectuals", however you are in denial over the current amount of popular support. (Which I understand, the comparative popularity of Leninism is depressing) I disapprove of the direction the class struggle is taking in India, but to say it's *not* class conflict is infantile. (If we lived in India our jobs would be to redirect the class conflict, not to denounce it)

Even if you were to make this argument, it is not the struggle of the working class, but that of the peasantry. It offers nothing to the working class at all. Oh, I don't underestimate the level of Naxalite support. It is very large amongst the peasantry and the poorest layers of society, and almost non-existent amongst the working class.


I presume from your icon that you are affiliated with the ICC, you have to admit that the "substitutionalist" efforts of the anarchists in both Greece and Chile are more sucessful in engaging the unconscious majority of our class than the efforts of the entire ICC across the globe over the past several decades...

I am am member of the ICC. I haven't made any comments about what is going on in Chile at all.


but it is my experience that your organization criticizes, often with irrationality and factual falsehoods, every moderately successful insurgency without providing by way of example any successful alternative.

Again, it depends on what you see as a 'moderately successful insurgency'. We believe that 'the emancipation of the working class is the task of the working class itself', and we don't think that what you are talking about here, has any connection to that.


I apologize. Are you Turkish? If so, how is the "struggle" of the ICC going in Turkey compared to the popularity of Marxist-Leninist separatist groups?

No I am not. I live here though. The ICC is a tiny group in Turkey with minimal influence. The best we can say really is that we had enough effect in a recent big strike for the unions to start denouncing us.

The Marxist-Leninist groups are nearly infinitely bigger, and still waging their 'people's war' up in the mountains. What does that have to do with workers' struggles either?

Devrim

[Os Cangaceiros]

These kinds of actions don't have anything to do with class struggle (as traditionally defined, at least), and I can see where those who simply dismiss them on that basis are coming from. But I'd also be lying if I said that actions such as these aren't pleasing to the "anarcho-rambo" inside my psyche.

[Omnia Sunt Communia]

Even if you were to make this argument, it is not the struggle of the working class, but that of the peasantry.

There is a common confusion between the "peasantry" in the Marxian sense and agrarian sectors of the working-class. The term "peasantry" is only really accurate when describing semi-feudal situations; (e.g.: China early-to-mid 20th century) Modern-day India doesn't really apply.

Either way the Chinese and Russian revolutions proved that the historical peasantry was a potent political force.


It offers nothing to the working class at all.

I agree that the Marxist-Leninist strategy offers nothing to the working-class in the long term. But Marxist-Leninist mass-movements are still examples of class conflict, any claims to the contrary are clearly expressions of resentment in spite of reality.

More still, Marxist-Leninist mass movements are manifestations of class conflict with an internationalist character and towards the stated goal of abolishing the capitalist state and class divisions. This is very good news for the libertarian left, provided the libertarian left takes advantage of the opportunity.


Oh, I don't underestimate the level of Naxalite support. It is very large amongst the peasantry and the poorest layers of society, and almost non-existent amongst the working class.

Your concept of "working class" appears to be very ahistorical and reactionary. (Possibly the result of an overly dogmatic reading of young Marx)


We believe that 'the emancipation of the working class is the task
of the working class itself'

The "working class itself" has more support for the contemporary political tendencies you are objecting to, than to your own organization, another example of self-delusion.

Also you seem to think that Greek anarchist punks and Nepalese "peasant gangs" are not "working class", which hints that you may have a bourgeois-sociological concept of "class". the working class is nothing more than the whole of those exploited by global capital.


what you are talking about here

Please clarify: What am I talking about, in your opinion?


The ICC is a tiny group in Turkey with minimal influence. The best we can say really is that we had enough effect in a recent big strike for the unions to start denouncing us.

So why do you put yourself in such a position of vocal authority to criticize?


The Marxist-Leninist groups are nearly infinitely bigger, and still waging their 'people's war' up in the mountains. What does that have to do with workers' struggles either?

Again, this is not a 'real' workers' struggle, even though it's vastly more popular and relevant than your own group, because you disagree with the direction your struggle is taking. Your group's long-term political goals are admirable, your group's pathological willful ignorance of reality and your tactical tendency of isolating yourself rather than taking on the responsibility of political insertion is not.

The truth is the masses who follow Leninist platforms out of ignorance are prone to recruitment into a potential left-libertarian current.

[bricolage]

The majority of the working class is currently hypnotized by bourgeois ideological hegemony
That's a rather patronising view point if you ask me.
In any case if it were the case then there would be no incidents of struggle to speak about, recent events in Greece (ie. mass strikes) would prove otherwise however when you state...


...any action within this context is "substitutionalist".
That ignores these events entirely.


The point of partisan actions is to awaken the revolutionary consciousness in the majority of our class.
Ok that's another point, however this attack doesn't actually seem to be motivated with this in mind, it seems to be motivated by solidarity with anarchists in Chile.
Of course there is an argument to be had about whether or not in certain incidents things like attacking cars can be used to inspire struggle but this seems less applicable here.


You're also using the term "working class" as shorthand for some sort of exclusive club of ideological purity rather than an all-encompassing term for those who objectively stand to benefit from the overthrow of capital.
I'm not sure anyone ever did this at all.


What's at the heart of the issue is backseat driving by the social-pacifists of the metropolitan left
I'm really getting bored of everyone calling people they don't like pacifists, it gets thrown around more than liberal these days to be honest.

[Ele'ill]

What does burning five cars have to do with class struggle?

Devrim

When utilized correctly- property destruction can...


Inspire five more people to burn five more cars.

Create an atmosphere of courage

Show fatal flaws in the action so future actions are more successful

Despite previous arguments regarding specific actions it can- when used correctly- allow other groups to engage in less lively activity in other areas that has more of an impact.

Most people are scared to death- in an inferior fashion- of police and the rich. Seeing working class folks in the street unafraid is again- inspiring.

It opens up avenues for more militant (and possibly even less 'violent') approaches.



Don't expect the entire 'working class' to get up and act as one entity. There are a lot of people not in a position to fight back- but hold the same opinions (or I'd actually like to say - hold the same facts) as those that actually act. There are a lot of people willing to strike but are unsure of where. We need failure as much as we need success if we're going to make shit move.


And for fucks sake- it shows a little fucking solidarity that we could desperately use in the world right now.

[Omnia Sunt Communia]

recent events in Greece (ie. mass strikes)

Mass-strikes in Greece were participated in by "the majority of the working class"?

It's inconsistent to glorify one act of proletarian resistance (a riot, mass-demonstration, mass strike) and demonize another, (a clandestine guerrilla attack) often it seems part of a "cult of the mass" which is divorced from actual tactical considerations. Ethically speaking riots are comparatively more volatile and indiscriminate in their destructive violence than insurrectionary attacks, yet this is no reason to denounce riots as "adventurist" as they are an inevitable manifestation of class conflict. There is the delusion that because some riot, strike, or demonstration may involve large groups of people that these are actions of a unified working class rather than dynamic incidents comprised of individuals with oftentimes confused and conflicted motivations. This is in no way an assured measure of proletarian power, yet it is exalted as such by those who fetishize and extol certain specific manifestations of class-violence while denouncing others.


I'm really getting bored of everyone calling people they don't like pacifists, it gets thrown around more than liberal these days to be honest.Perhaps but I actually think this sort of ideology I'm describing is more insidious than 'liberal' pacifism, which is at least consistent.

[black magick hustla]

omnia sunt communia i think youve read too much q

[Devrim]

There is a common confusion between the "peasantry" in the Marxian sense and agrarian sectors of the working-class. The term "peasantry" is only really accurate when describing semi-feudal situations; (e.g.: China early-to-mid 20th century) Modern-day India doesn't really apply.

Agricultural workers are those who are paid wages to work on other people's land. Peasants own their own land. They are different classes and have different interests.

Obviously the peasantry does still exist today, in massive numbers even, regardless of whether you apply the term 'semi-feudal situation' or not.


Either way the Chinese and Russian revolutions proved that the historical peasantry was a potent political force.

Yes, the Chinese revolution proved that the peasantry could be used as a potent force. It didn't have anything to do with socialism though and was in no way a workers' revolution.


I agree that the Marxist-Leninist strategy offers nothing to the working-class in the long term. But Marxist-Leninist mass-movements are still examples of class conflict, any claims to the contrary are clearly expressions of resentment in spite of reality.

More still, Marxist-Leninist mass movements are manifestations of class conflict with an internationalist character and towards the stated goal of abolishing the capitalist state and class divisions. This is very good news for the libertarian left, provided the libertarian left takes advantage of the opportunity.

More often than not Marxist-Leninist movements have a distinctly nationalist character.


Your concept of "working class" appears to be very ahistorical and reactionary. (Possibly the result of an overly dogmatic reading of young Marx)

Almost certainly not. I haven't read Marx in over twenty years.


The "working class itself" has more support for the contemporary political tendencies you are objecting to, than to your own organization, another example of self-delusion.

At no point have I ever suggested that the working class supports our organisation. In fact I have stated quite the opposite. That our organisation is tiny and a virtually no influence. I don't see what is at all 'delusional' about that.



The ICC is a tiny group in Turkey with minimal influence. The best we can say really is that we had enough effect in a recent big strike for the unions to start denouncing us. So why do you put yourself in such a position of vocal authority to criticize?

Do you think that people can only criticise when they are in big organisations? I presume that would rule out your capacity to make any comment at all.



The Marxist-Leninist groups are nearly infinitely bigger, and still waging their 'people's war' up in the mountains. What does that have to do with workers' struggles either? Again, this is not a 'real' workers' struggle, even though it's vastly more popular and relevant than your own group, because you disagree with the direction your struggle is taking. Your group's long-term political goals are admirable, your group's pathological willful ignorance of reality and your tactical tendency of isolating yourself rather than taking on the responsibility of political insertion is not.

To me this is the central point here. 'People's War' is not a workers' struggle. What the Maoists do with any workers that they happen to recruit* is to send them off to the mountains (in this country Jungles in the Philippines etc...) to small guerilla groups who occasionally kill a couple of soldiers. Now personally, I don't see this as a tactic for taking the working class forward. What it actually does is takes those workers out of the working class, out of the daily class struggle and puts them in an entirely different situation.

It is not just that what these groups do isn't working class struggle. They don't even attempt to relate to workers as workers in any way at all. During the recent TEKEL struggle in Turkey, probably the biggest, most visible working class struggle in this country for many years, which involved thousands of workers permanently demonstrating on the streets of the capital and two 'general' strikes, these sort of groups were conspicuous only by their absence. I think that one of them attacked a police station in Istanbul, and claimed it was 'in Solidarity', but that is all.

Devrim

*The vast majority of people that these sort of groups recruit are not actually workers, but members of the 'middle classes' and peasants.

[Delenda Carthago]

Facts:
A.These kind of actions are part of peoples resistance culture.Its not the first time an action like has happened.Matter of fact,in the years 2008-2009 there was like,ten communiques(which often where for more than one attack)per week in athens.indymedia.Politicians offices,banks,police stations,corporations,embassys etc where targets of arsons with vutane tanks and gasoline.
The (in)famous Conspiracy of Cells of Fire where a network of cores-teams that did that kind of attacks before they turn to bombs.
Besides,as I told before,last week some workers claimed responsibility to an arson to a security guards car for snitching on the workers.

B.These kind of actions are not substituting mass actions.On the contrary,these kind of actions keep a buzz going against the social peace.

C.These type of actions have stopped in the last ten months.Mostly because they are few for Greece's situation.

D.This action was kinda irrelevant with the greek working class.Its target was clearly to put pressure on the Chilean state about the attack on anarchist space over there.But even its not primarly about working class, actions like these are beeing writen on peoples DNA.

E.there is not total truth.this is truth for Greece,or at least a part of greece's people.Maybe in Turkey it wouldnt work.I dont know.I am not an idiot to think i can apply one solution to every situation.

[bricolage]

Mass-strikes in Greece were participated in by "the majority of the working class"?
I don't know. Certainly quite a lot, certainly more so than this action.
I'm sure you are in a better position to judge from your ivory tower than the 'hypnotised' masses.


It's inconsistent to glorify one act of proletarian resistance (a riot, mass-demonstration, mass strike) and demonize another, (a clandestine guerrilla attack)
Why? They are different acts.
Who says we have to support everything?
Also I'd guess quite a few people here who are criticising this act would also criticise riots as a tactic of struggle, certainly the left communists would.


yet this is no reason to denounce riots as "adventurist"
Has anyone here actually done this?


There is the delusion that because some riot, strike, or demonstration may involve large groups of people that these are actions of a unified working class rather than dynamic incidents comprised of individuals with oftentimes confused and conflicted motivations. This is in no way an assured measure of proletarian power, yet it is exalted as such by those who fetishize and extol certain specific manifestations of class-violence while denouncing others.
I don't really get what you are on about here.


Perhaps but I actually think this sort of ideology I'm describing is more insidious than 'liberal' pacifism, which is at least consistent.
Yes but is an 'ideology' that isn't applicable to anyone here. You seem to have just made assumptions about the people you are arguing with and are building your argument based on them rather than actually addressing what is being said.

[zimmerwald1915]

D.This action was kinda irrelevant with the greek working class.Its target was clearly to put pressure on the Chilean state about the attack on anarchist space over there.But even its not primarly about working class, actions like these are beeing writen on peoples DNA.
And thank you for conceding Devrim's point: that this action has no relationship, intended or not, to the working class. As for "being written on the people's DNA", the experiences that stick with the working class and, more importantly, help it to struggle better, are those in which it is the primary actor.

[Delenda Carthago]

And thank you for conceding Devrim's point: that this action has no relationship, intended or not, to the working class. As for "being written on the people's DNA", the experiences that stick with the working class and, more importantly, help it to struggle better, are those in which it is the primary actor.
oh,I m sorry...am i in onlyworkingclass.com or smth?

or do you think that the attack against our brothers in Chile is irrelevant with the revolution situation?

ps.i was talkin on the specific arson.

[Palingenisis]

omnia sunt communia i think youve read too much q

Who or what is this q he has been reading to much of?

[Palingenisis]

oh,I m sorry...am i in onlyworkingclass.com or smth?

or do you think that the attack against our brothers in Chile is irrelevant with the revolution situation?

ps.i was talkin on the specific arson.

Left Communists seem to be idealogically opposed to or at least very uneasy about any form of struggle that takes place outside of the context of the workplace....By firebombing even one car though you threaten thousands and it shows the ruling class that they are not safe in any country from revenge by proles for attacks on their sisters and brothers in a particular country.

[Zanthorus]

Left Communists seem to be idealogically opposed to or at least very uneasy about any form of struggle that takes place outside of the context of the workplace.

I don't think it's uneasiness about struggles taking place outside the workplace. Just an opposition to individual terrorism. This is a pretty basic tenet of Marxism.

[Delenda Carthago]

Left Communists seem to be idealogically opposed to or at least very uneasy about any form of struggle that takes place outside of the context of the workplace....By firebombing even one car though you threaten thousands and it shows the ruling class that they are not safe in any country from revenge by proles for attacks on their sisters and brothers in a particular country.
well,i think its pretty obvious that class war goes beyond the workplaces,now dont it?motherfuckers who dont understand that and try to fit reality into their own litle boxes they call "ideology",are the reason why in the middle of the crisis revolution is far fuckin away more than ever...

[Palingenisis]

I don't think it's uneasiness about struggles taking place outside the workplace. Just an opposition to individual terrorism. This is a pretty basic tenet of Marxism.

From the Molly Maguires in the 19 th century to China today where workers' shot a boss last year as part of an industrial struggle "individual terrorism" has always been used by the working class movement. Where does Marx or Lenin condemn urban guerrilla tactics wholesale?

[Palingenisis]

I don't think it's uneasiness about struggles taking place outside the workplace. Just an opposition to individual terrorism. This is a pretty basic tenet of Marxism.

But they are...One of their comrades here criticized a comrade from Eirigi for talking about the importance of community struggles.

[Devrim]

The (in)famous Conspiracy of Cells of Fire where a network of cores-teams that did that kind of attacks before they turn to bombs.

It really doesn't surprise me.


This action was kinda irrelevant with the greek working class.Its target was clearly to put pressure on the Chilean state about the attack on anarchist space over there.But even its not primarly about working class, actions like these are beeing writen on peoples DNA.

Which was my point really.

Devrim

[Devrim]

Who or what is this q he has been reading to much of?

It is an Italian novel:http://www.wumingfoundation.com/italiano/downloads.shtml

Devrim

[Devrim]

But they are...One of their comrades here criticized a comrade from Eirigi for talking about the importance of community struggles.

We don't have any members in Ireland.

It is pretty difficult to comment without knowing exactly what was said. Of course there can be class struggle in the 'community', but a lot of what is called 'community struggle' by the left are actually cross class movements.

Devrim

[Devrim]

well,i think its pretty obvious that class war goes beyond the workplaces,now dont it?motherfuckers who dont understand that and try to fit reality into their own litle boxes they call "ideology",are the reason why in the middle of the crisis revolution is far fuckin away more than ever...

One could ask why in the middle of the crisis with an anarchist being shot in the street how was it that the reasonably large sized Greek anarchist movement completely failed to link up with workers struggles that were happening at the same time.

How many strikes were there in response to that boy getting murdered. As far as I am aware only one.

Devrim

[Palingenisis]

We don't have any members in Ireland.

It is pretty difficult to comment without knowing exactly what was said. Of course there can be class struggle in the 'community', but a lot of what is called 'community struggle' by the left are actually cross class movements.

Devrim

It was zimmerland on here and about community struggles in general.

[zimmerwald1915]

It was zimmerland on here and about community struggles in general.
Um, what? I made two posts in this thread, besides this one, and neither had anything to do with "community struggles", specifically or in general.

Are you refering to the exchange between you, me, and We Shall Rise Again in this thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/ir-g-occupation-t133947/index.html?t=133947)?

[Palingenisis]

How many strikes were there in response to that boy getting murdered. As far as I am aware only one.


More and more proletarians in the west are placed in small work places and most Unions are worse than useless. That some people would turn to other forms of struggle isnt surprising and not necessarily reactionary.

[Palingenisis]

Um, what? I made two posts in this thread, besides this one, and neither had anything to do with "community struggles", specifically or in general.

Are you refering to the exchange between you, me, and We Shall Rise Again in this thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/ir-g-occupation-t133947/index.html?t=133947)?

Yes that is the one I had in mind.

Particularly this line....."Making oneself feel relevant by addressing "communities and community activists" does not contribute to the class struggle."

[Delenda Carthago]

One could ask why in the middle of the crisis with an anarchist being shot in the street how was it that the reasonably large sized Greek anarchist movement completely failed to link up with workers struggles that were happening at the same time.

How many strikes were there in response to that boy getting murdered. As far as I am aware only one.

Devrim


What are you talking about?December 2008 or Lambros Fountas?


Edit:scratch that,now I got you...

First of all,there where no "workers stuggles happening at that time".I dont know what are you reffering as such,but there where no such thing.

Secondly,there where no crisis in Greece at that time.

Last but not least,there is something called class war and there is something called social war.December revolt was all about social war.Even though,many workers where mobilised and there was the GSEE building occupation for the first time,that was not the character of the revolt.I know its hard for you to accept that,but thats how it is.

Now,if you are not satisfied with what December achieved,you can always outdo us...

[Palingenisis]

Last but not least,there is something called class war and there is something called social war.December revolt was all about social war.Even though,many workers where mobilised and there was the GSEE building occupation for the first time,that was not the character of the revolt.I know its hard for you to accept that,but thats how it is.


...

What do you see as the difference between the two?

I would see the December rebellion as class struggle....Letting the state know that they couldnt get away with murdering proletarian kids.

An anarcho-sydnicalist comrade on here talked about the whole of capitalist society being a "social-factory" which I think is an interesting concept. Class society and class struggle doesnt stop at the factory gates.

[Delenda Carthago]

What do you see as the difference between the two?

I would see the December rebellion as class struggle....Letting the state know that they couldnt get away with murdering proletarian kids.

An anarcho-sydnicalist comrade on here talked about the whole of capitalist society being a "social-factory" which I think is an interesting concept. Class society and class struggle doesnt stop at the factory gates.
ok,first of all,alexandros grigoropoulos was not a proletarian kid.

secondly,there is a big difference in between the two.

in class war you take the stance of a worker and you attack your class enemys.you put your class identity first and you act based on it.in social war you take the stance of whoever(yourself per say)and fight even against proletarians who support the rotteness of this world.


i ll give you some examples:

per say,in class war you want to occupy a corporation and share its goods.
in social war you just burn it to the ground as an activism against consumerism.

in class war,you dont really care about art other than use it to promote your ideas.
in social war you are against the cheap bourgeois pop art.

in class war you call for a strike.
in social war you burn the city to the ground.

[Delenda Carthago]

I got a better one:

In May 68,students fought the social war.
Workers fought the class war.

[Palingenisis]

Alexandros Grigoropoulos from a middle class family???

[Delenda Carthago]

Alexandros Grigoropoulos from a middle class family???
yes

[Devrim]

What are you talking about?December 2008 or Lambros Fountas?

December 2008.


First of all,there where no "workers stuggles happening at that time".I dont know what are you reffering as such,but there where no such thing.

Alexandros Grigoropoulos was killed on 6th December. There was a general strike organised previously on December 10th.


Wednesday, 10th of December
This day was a day of general strike, and its aim had been predetermined over a month ago: it was mainly “against the state budget 2009”. Due to the ongoing riots, the chief unionists spoke against police brutality, separating at the same time the “rioters” from the “responsible quiet demonstrators”. More than 7.000 people attended the gathering at Syntagma Square. Some protesters threw fire bombs at police during a general strike which paralyzed Greece and piled pressure on a doddering government.

http://libcom.org/news/short-presentation-recent-events-athens-through-eyes-some-proletarian-participants-tptg-co-


Secondly,there where no crisis in Greece at that time.

The crisis openly re-emerged onto the world scene in September 2007. Every country in the world was effected. In fact the very same crisis that had caused the budget that the general strike was against.


Last but not least,there is something called class war and there is something called social war.December revolt was all about social war.Even though,many workers where mobilised and there was the GSEE building occupation for the first time,that was not the character of the revolt.I know its hard for you to accept that,but thats how it is.

No, it was not the character of the 'revolt', and is connected to the reasons that it burnt out. Ultimately these sort of actions are doomed to burn out without the mass participation of the working class. That is not to say that workers didn't participate in the events of December 2008. They obviously did, but as individuals, not as workers.

In one way the events were very similar to the recent movement in Iran, which too had massive 'popular' mobilisations without really connecting to the working class, and similarly burnt itself out.

Very different from the events in Iran in 1979. At the time we wrote:


For all the talk of people in the streets overthrowing the regime, what was clear in 1979 was that the strikes of the Iranian workers were the major, political element leading to the overthrow of the Shah's regime. Despite the mass mobilisations, when the ‘popular' movement - regrouping almost all the oppressed strata in Iran - began to exhaust itself, the entry into the struggle of the Iranian proletariat at the beginning of October 1978, most notably in the oil sector, not only refuelled the agitation, but posed a virtually insolvable problem for the national capital, in the absence of a replacement being found for the old governmental team. Repression was enough to cause the retreat of the small merchants, the students and those without work, but it proved a powerless weapon of the bourgeoisie when confronted with the economic paralysis provoked by the strikes of the workers.

The events at the time of the so-called 'Green movement' in Iran were very different. Basically the working class didn't take part as workers, though as in Greece many individual workers obviously did:


So where do the communists stand on events in Iran today? That the Green movement is a completely bourgeois movement with nothing to offer workers seems to us very clear. Also it seems that it is also losing momentum. While the initial protests brought hundreds of thousands out into the streets, the numbers today seem to be getting smaller and smaller. It seemed possible in the early days of the struggle that the working class might make impose itself on the situation. After the repression used by the police against demonstrators in Tehran, workers at the massive Khodro car factory walked out on a twenty four hour strike, not in support of either candidate in the election, but against the violence used by the state. But apart from a few statements from the bus drivers' union, this was the limit of workers' participation in the movement as workers. Yes, of course there were many workers involved in the protests, but they were there as isolated individuals, not as a collective force. In these situations, in a cross-class movement, which all of the various reports coming out of Iran from different leftist groups seem to agree that it was, without acting as a collective force, workers can only be submerged in the great mass of ‘the people', a mass that is being used by other class forces to further their own interests.

I think that the events in Greece show a very similar tendency. Without the mass participation of the working class it is impossible to build upon movements like these.

Which comes back to a point that you made before:


there is not total truth.this is truth for Greece,or at least a part of greece's people.Maybe in Turkey it wouldnt work.I dont know.I am not an idiot to think i can apply one solution to every situation.

There isn't one way that is 'true' for Greece, and other ways that are 'true' for other countries. Capitalism is a world system, and the proletarian condition is universal. The methods that are adopted by workers in one country tend to be much more similar than different to the methods adopted by workers in other countries.

The great moments of working class struggle from Russia in 1905 through to more modern example such as Hungry 1956, Paris 1968, and Poland 1980-1, all tend to adopt the same methods, mass meetings electing committees of recallable delegates. Nor are these methods confined to European countries as the workers' councils in the 1979 revolution in Iran show, as do the same methods adopted in the recent struggles at Al-Mahala in Egypt.

Today there is no national solution.


Now,if you are not satisfied with what December achieved,you can always outdo us...

It is not some national game of who can be the 'best revolutionaries'. The Greek events of 2008 in now way match up to the struggles of the Italian 'Hot Autumn' of 1969-70, or the British 'Winter of discontent' 1978-79, nor even France in 1968.

This is not in anyway because the Greeks are 'worse revolutionaries' than the Italians, British, Poles or French, but is related to the period and material circumstances.

What did it achieve though? I think if anything it emphasised the gap between the working class as a whole, and the 'anarchist movement' in Greece. I think that anarchists in Greece would do well to reflect on that, and how to bridge that gap. There are real questions to be asked, particularly about breaking the KKE's hold on the working class.

The alternative is to burn a few cars and to say things like "in social war you take the stance of whoever(yourself per say)and fight even against proletarians who support the rotteness of this world."

Devrim

[Delenda Carthago]

A.One general strike "gunshot"(as we call it) does not in any circumstance consist a "workers struggle".Matter of fact,that specific demo would have been forgoten the next week if it didnt got connected with December revolt.And its been remembered because it was the first demostation ever to start,earlier than the time announced so that the people of the revolt would not attach!!:laugh::laugh:

B.The crisis was not mentionted as a situation that we go through until summer of 2009.Because,even if capitalism is a world system,the crisis took some time to expand worldwide-not every country was affected at the same time.

C.As far as the character of the revolt you obviously know better...

D.Capitalism is a world system but with a variety of local and historical differences.Its totaly different the situation even in neighboor countrys like Greece and in Turkey.You cant expect the resistance to be the same in a european industrialised country like Germany and in an eastern poor country like Nepal.Its also a different thing during the time.Its a different thing to rebel against capitalism today and different 30 years ago.So its obvious that capitalism is not ONE system,it evolves and adjusts.And its obvious that there is not ONE truth on how to fight it.Well,maybe for someone monolithic there is,but you know...dumbster of history etc.

E.I m not talkin about greeks,OBVIOUSLY.I m talking about you and your "tendecy" to outdo our ways.By your authentication in your writing one can tell that you obviously know a lot better,so do better...And maybe then you ll convice us and we ll follow your own one and only truth.

F.As far as what it did achieved,I m not gonna talk about it with you...I know that we have to start a convertation for 10 pages only to set the common ground to start talking about it and I m not gonna do that.I m only gonna tell you this:December was not an answer,it was a question...

[Devrim]

A.One general strike "gunshot"(as we call it) does not in any circumstance consist a "workers struggle".Matter of fact,that specific demo would have been forgoten the next week if it didnt got connected with December revolt.And its been remembered because it was the first demostation ever to start,earlier than the time announced so that the people of the revolt would not attach!!:laugh::laugh:

If a general strike isn't a workers' struggle, then what is it? Of course workers were struggling already contrary to what you asserted. The fact that there wasa general strike indicates this.


B.The crisis was not mentionted as a situation that we go through until summer of 2009.Because,even if capitalism is a world system,the crisis took some time to expand worldwide-not every country was affected at the same time.

I find this very surprising. Actually I was genuinely surprised by how fast the crisis spread across the world. In the immediate days after the shook in American, the TV was full of economists saying that this was merely a crisis in America and of course wouldn't effect us. Yet within a month the country was being hit by an economic slowdown, and there were the beginnings of mass lay-offs. I spoke to comrades across the world and the vast majority reported similar things. One of the few exceptions was Australia, which did seem to avoid recession.

Greece was not an exception though. The Greek economy has reported negative growth for the last seven quarters in a row:


Greece’s economy contracted for a seventh quarter and unemployment rose as the wage-cuts and tax increases that aim to trim the European Union’s second-biggest budget deficit deepened a recession. Greece is mired in the second year of a recession as the government attempts to tame a budget shortfall of 13.6 percent of GDP, the highest in the 27-nation EU after Ireland. Amid soaring borrowing costs, Prime Minister George Papandreou in May promised further wage cuts and tax increases on alcohol, fuel and tobacco in return for emergency loans from the International Monetary Fund and the EU to stave off a default.


Source (http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-08-12/greek-gdp-shrinks-for-seventh-quarter-unemployment-rises.html)

Now if the Greek economy has been shrinking for seven quarter in a row that means that the quarter when it was reported to be shrinking was November 2008, and if it is reported then it means that the shrinkage, and job losses had occurred within the previous free months.

So contrary to what you said Greece was actually pretty deep in economic crisis in December 2008. The fact that the crisis has deepened significantly in Greece since then does not mean that it wasn't very much in evidence at the time.


C.As far as the character of the revolt you obviously know better...

Is it, or is it not true that the working class wasn't involved in this struggle as workers? Apart from one instance in the education sector, did any workers strike in support of this struggle?


E.I m not talkin about greeks,OBVIOUSLY.I m talking about you and your "tendecy" to outdo our ways.By your authentication in your writing one can tell that you obviously know a lot better,so do better...And maybe then you ll convice us and we ll follow your own one and only truth.

I think that we look at these things in very different ways. We don't even envisage a 'left communist struggle'. There is class struggle, and we try to play a part within it.


F.As far as what it did achieved,I m not gonna talk about it with you...I know that we have to start a convertation for 10 pages only to set the common ground to start talking about it and I m not gonna do that.I m only gonna tell you this:December was not an answer,it was a question...

And what do you think the answer is, burning five cars?

Devrim

[bricolage]

Is it, or is it not true that the working class wasn't involved in this struggle as workers? Apart from one instance in the education sector, did any workers strike in support of this struggle?
On the role of workers in Greek December, the introduction to 'Everyone to the streets: texts and communiques from the Greek uprising' gives a good overview;


An obvious weakness of the movement is that it had very little effect on the world of work, apart from the disruption of production and circulation in the centre of Athens because the riots created a chaotic situation. When workplaces such as colleges and town halls were occupied it was because they were convenient places to initiate other subversive activities rather than an attempt to disrupt a process of capitalist production. There were no strikes (apart from one by teachers on the day of the murdered student’s funeral) directly connected with the movement. Partly this can be explained by the class composition of the riots and Greek society in general, particularly the prevalence of small workplaces. However this does not mean that the movement had nothing to do with workers. Many insurgents were wage workers themselves, but it was not possible for them to do something in their workplaces. There was widespread agitation and direct action in support of Konstantina Kuneva, a migrant cleaner and trade union activist who was viciously attacked by company goons. This included demands for the abolition of subcontracting system which so many women migrants cleaners are subjected to and physical attacks on the companies which make use of it. There was also widespread discussion during the occupations about issues related to work, not least about the role of the trade union and their increasing irrelevance in the face of the growing insecurity and casualisation of more and more categories of workers. However, it has to be said that this critique was mostly limited to condemning “bureaucratic” trade unionism, and there were many activists who still wanted to promote rank-and-file unionism.

Later in the same book an analysis by TPTG entitled 'The rebellious passage of a proletarian minority through a brief period of time' attempts to explain this with a reference to the high levels of precarious workers;


From our empirical knowledge, those workers who can be described either as “workers with a stable job” or non-precarious had a very limited participation in the rebellion, if any...

Capitalism in Greece is characterised by a low concentration of capital with many small firms where less than ten people are employed and where almost no kind of unionism exists. One of the main subjects of the rebellion, thus, the precarious waged workers, who mainly work in such places, do not consider them to be a terrain of proletarian power and mobilisation and in most cases they are not attached to their job. Possibly, it was precisely their inability or even unwillingness to mobilise there that made young precarious workers take to the streets... In the case of precarious workers, extending the rebellion to their workplaces would mean wildcats and occupations and nothing less. Well, certainly, given the practical possibilities there and subjective disposition, such an extension was both unfeasible and undesirable.

The emphasis on precarious or temporary workers is interesting as here a parallel can be drawn with the 2005 uprisings in Paris. Here is one explanation on the related attacks;


Temporary work agencies and 'state community centres' were attacked and destroyed no less than the police stations... But the temp agencies and the community centres were not burned by chance, they were deliberately attacked no more and no less than the police stations...

Everybody knows what temp agencies are. They regulate access to the labour market on a temporary basis and on conditions that favour companies. They are also organisations of blackmail and social control by police and unions, because if you're someone who organises the struggle and the conflict in the workplace or in any case someone who steps out of line, you're thrown out, and you can be sure it will be very hard for you to get another contract. You end up among the undesirables and you don't work again. The agencies are the main weapons used by capitalism to make workers harmless...

However returning to Greece TPTG go on to speak of the occupations of union buildings;


However, many rebels realised these limits and tried to make such a leap. The occupation of the central offices of the General Confederation of Labour of Greece (GSEE) stemmed from this need.

In January the media workers that had participated actively in the rebellion occupied the offices of the corporate journalists’ trade union... The occupation of ESIEA focussed broadly on two issues: the first was the work relations and the widespread precarity in the media industry as well as the fragmented form of union organisation of the media workers; the second was the control of information by the official media, the way the revolt was “covered” by them and how counter-information could be produced by the movement.

The language which these occupations were framed in certainly indicates their participants thought of them as proletarian acts;


Since 8 o’clock in the morning the building of GSEE (Patision and Alexandras) is occupied. We declare the building a Liberated Workers’ Zone. Open Workers’ Assembly at 6pm. The building is open to all workers all day long.... WE DECIDED TO OCCUPT THE BUILDING OF GSEE... To dispell the media-touted myth that the workers were and are absent from the clashes, and that rage of these days was an affair of some 500 “mask-wearers”, “hooligans” or some other fairy tale, while on the tv-screens the workers were presented as victims of the clash, while the capitalist crisis in Greece and worldwide leads to countless layoffs that the media and their managers present as a “natural phenomenon”.

Our place is with the rebels. One more reason for this is because we experience everyday exploitation in our workplaces too.... Like all workers, we experience the hypocrisy and the betrayal of the unions. The Journalists Union of Athens (ESIEA) is an institution that turns against the workers’ calls for resistance against the bosses, due to the crucial need to overcomes any internal divisions and job fragmentation, in order to create a united trade union in the press... ESIEA is, in reality, a bosses’ union and a basic support mechanism for them, as their refusal to take part in the general strike on Wednesday, December 10th 2008 showed. For all these reasons, as an initiative of wage workers, unpaid workers, recently-fired workers and students in the media, we have decided to occupy the ESIEA building.

Yet on the specific rioting of December TPTG are quite clear that those who participated did so under the role of 'rebel'. For them this is a 'good' thing, although there is of course much to contest here;


The rebels who met in the streets and the occupations temporarily superseded their separated identities and roles imposed on them by capitalist society since they met not as workers, university or school students or migrants but as rebels. They may not all have used a proletarian language, they may not have been able to go on strike, except for the secondary school and university students, but what they really did was to create proletarian communities of struggle against the state and capital.

[bricolage]

In addition TPTG seem to make that classic 'insurrectionist' critique of insurrection as failing due to passivity and unwillingness to act on the part of the non-insurgents. I think this conveys their preoccupation with the 'present' as something which must be immediately seized, that we cannot afford to wait (we can't, but perhaps not in the way they mean) and that we can jump into outright social insurgency here and now. That Greek December ended was not necessarily because the wider working class were 'passive' but because it failed to bridge the divide between street warfare and the issues and concerns of everyday life, it failed to relate itself to the interests and position of the average worker. The way TPTG phrase this seems to reek of an elitist attitude to the wider working class. They assert that workers are 'passive' yet fail to ask why this is, why they didn't take to the streets and what can be done to bridge this gap in the future. The view seems to be (and I am reading heavily into it here) that this can only be done by individual 'enlightenments' so to speak in ordinary workers, where they decide to break out of passivity simply because they recognise they are 'holding back' genuine insurgency, not because the insurgency has become relevant to their lives in a way it is not now. I believe this to be fundamentally misguided;


How did the movement end?
You are right in your consideration that the movement just ran out of steam. This is connected with the fact that it was a minority proletarian movement characterised by the distinct tradition of struggles of its different ‘delinquent’ parts. After more than 2 weeks of riots and occupations most of the people got really tired and the only way to continue would be the spreading out of the revolt in other parts of the proletariat. But this was not possible because of the passive attitude of the part of the working class that did not participate in the revolt. This explains why the revolt didn’t spread to the workplaces as well as why the occupations in the neighbourhoods stopped after some time, although most of the squatters thought that this could possibly be another way of extending the struggle.

[Delenda Carthago]

If a general strike isn't a workers' struggle, then what is it? Of course workers were struggling already contrary to what you asserted. The fact that there wasa general strike indicates this.


A "general strike"(with minimum partitipation) of one day does not count for "workers stuggle".For "GSEE struggle in order to satisfy the angry workers",maybe.



I find this very surprising. Actually I was genuinely surprised by how fast the crisis spread across the world. In the immediate days after the shook in American, the TV was full of economists saying that this was merely a crisis in America and of course wouldn't effect us. Yet within a month the country was being hit by an economic slowdown, and there were the beginnings of mass lay-offs. I spoke to comrades across the world and the vast majority reported similar things. One of the few exceptions was Australia, which did seem to avoid recession


The crisis entered the social dialog in summer 09.Wana believe it?cool.Dont want to?your problem.



Is it, or is it not true that the working class wasn't involved in this struggle as workers? Apart from one instance in the education sector, did any workers strike in support of this struggle?


Class struggle has a lot of forms.Today more than ever,the meaning of proletariat is spread in a social way.Even marxist-stalinists like Zizek admit that.


And what do you think the answer is, burning five cars?
Yes.Because anarchists where totaly not around for the last year and a half,and now they remebered to burn five cars for..."solidarity"(unknown word in revleft)reasons...

[Devrim]

A "general strike"(with minimum partitipation) of one day does not count for "workers stuggle".For "GSEE struggle in order to satisfy the angry workers",maybe.

Yet there were some workers struggling, which you claimed there weren't.


The crisis entered the social dialog in summer 09.Wana believe it?cool.Dont want to?your problem.It is interesting that you quote the point here where I said "I find this very surprising", and not the point which gave actual economic data about Greece:



Greece’s economy contracted for a seventh quarter and unemployment rose as the wage-cuts and tax increases that aim to trim the European Union’s second-biggest budget deficit deepened a recession. Greece is mired in the second year of a recession as the government attempts to tame a budget shortfall of 13.6 percent of GDP, the highest in the 27-nation EU after Ireland. Amid soaring borrowing costs, Prime Minister George Papandreou in May promised further wage cuts and tax increases on alcohol, fuel and tobacco in return for emergency loans from the International Monetary Fund and the EU to stave off a default.

Source (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-08-12/greek-gdp-shrinks-for-seventh-quarter-unemployment-rises.html)

Now if the Greek economy has been shrinking for seven quarter in a row that means that the quarter when it was reported to be shrinking was November 2008, and if it is reported then it means that the shrinkage, and job losses had occurred within the previous free months.

So contrary to what you said Greece was actually pretty deep in economic crisis in December 2008. The fact that the crisis has deepened significantly in Greece since then does not mean that it wasn't very much in evidence at the time.

Now, I completely fail to believe that nobody mentioned this in Greece until summer 2009. By February the ecomomy was in 'official' recession, i.e. two consecutive quarters of negative growth. Did nobody mention that? Maybe you didn't notice that, but I am sure the working class did. Recession always means job losses. Or maybe you are right and Greece is an 'exception' to the normal rules of capitalist economics.


Class struggle has a lot of forms.Today more than ever,the meaning of proletariat is spread in a social way.Even marxist-stalinists like Zizek admit that.

Right so a reformed Stalinist, who is a professional intellectual talking about society says something. I am sorry, are we supposed to take either him, or your line of argument on this point, (Oh an ex-Stalinist agrees with me) at all seriously.


Yes.Because anarchists where totaly not around for the last year and a half,and now they remebered to burn five cars for..."solidarity"(unknown word in revleft)reasons...

And what have they done in this time? Have they tried to orientate themselves towards the working class at all?

Devrim

[Omnia Sunt Communia]

Agricultural workers are those who are paid wages to work on other people's land. Peasants own their own land. They are different classes and have different interests.

The majority of Naxalite support is drawn from the former category, and among the lowest rungs of society: women, youth 'non-Aryans'. (I assume you think these people are not proletariat and in fact 'lumpen', it is the dead cops whose blood you cry over that are in fact lumpen)

However, I will play the devil's advocate here in defense of the agrarian petit-bourgeois

In my personal experiences as an agricultural worker, (not a peasant, mind you) this is not an accurate reflection of reality. To quote Sakai:


one of the endemic problems in how radicals think of class structure is that to us it's too much like a structure (it's something we inherit from our bourgeois Aristotelian ideological indoctrination). Rigid, house-like, fixed, a thing distinct and separate of itself. Which is may be useful as an abstraction to get an overview, but is not really true. Class structure is not really a set of boxes.

In many examples of agrarian production we have a petty capitalist family patriarch landowner who subjugates his immediate and extended family for labor, also conditions of the global property market are constantly declassing small-time landowners; thus there is much vacillation between the proletarian and agrarian petty-bourgeois classes.

Whatever peasantry exists in the world is being continually declassed by the march of capitalist valorization. As Marx said in 1848, the world is falling further and further into two great camps. If my boss owns 10 acres of land, upon which he grows produce, and pays me $12-14* a half-bushel, and sells at a produce auction for $40-50 a half-bushel, his objective standard of living is not much higher than my own. (Furthermore his capital, namely his land, is controlled by the state and finance capital through taxation, mortgage, etc.) Therefore the lowest rungs of the agrarian petit-bourgeoisie are a potentially progressive force in the class-conflict. They should not be viewed as an "enemy class" with "separate interests" necessarily, and it is necessary and commendable to recruit them into the cause of the proletariat. The Maoist success in this regard is a matter of resentment on your part.

You might as well denounce anti-foreclosure activists in the US of 'rallying the petit-bourgeois'

*I apologize for US-centric examples, I am not very world-traveled.


Yes, the Chinese revolution proved that the peasantry could be used as a potent force. It didn't have anything to do with socialism though and was in no way a workers' revolution.

You're like a Stalinist teenager's parody of an "ultra-left"...the Chinese revolution was a socialist workers' revolution co-opted by totalitarian party bureaucrats. Are you just going to ignore the Chinese left-communists?


More often than not Marxist-Leninist movements have a distinctly nationalist character.

The Stalinist ideology of "socialism in one state" is a blatant pretense for the maintainence of a bourgeois nation-state, however it is not precisely the same thing as nationalist ideology. Marxist-Leninists do not rally the German workers against the Jews


I haven't read Marx in over twenty years.

Never too late to start up again...


At no point have I ever suggested that the working class supports our organisation. In fact I have stated quite the opposite. That our organisation is tiny and a virtually no influence. I don't see what is at all 'delusional' about that.

What's delusional is the position of authoritative criticism you place yourself in regarding movements in other parts of the globe (Greece, India) which you know little about, given your own group's abject lack of success.


Do you think that people can only criticise when they are in big organisations?

I think people should only criticize when their criticisms are constructive, which clearly yours are not...


What the Maoists do with any workers that they happen to recruit* is to send them off to the mountains (in this country Jungles in the Philippines etc...)

You are mystifying "the mountains", "the jungles", etc. as 'backwoods' terrain unencroached-upon by capitalism, whose events do not effect or concern the urban proletariat. You are substituting an internationalist, broad class approach in favor of cliquish and chauvinistic elitism.


We’ve heard enough about the “city” and the “country,” and particularly about the supposed ancient opposition between the two. From up close or from afar, what surrounds us looks nothing like that: it is one single urban cloth, without form or order, a bleak zone, endless and undefined, a global continuum of museum-like city centers and natural parks, of enormous suburban housing developments and massive agricultural projects, industrial zones and subdivisions, country inns and trendy bars: the metropolis. Certainly the ancient city existed, as did the cities of medieval and modern times. But there is no such thing as a metropolitan city. All territory is synthesized within the metropolis. Everything occupies the same space, if not geographically then through the intermeshing of its networks.


to small guerilla groups who occasionally kill a couple of soldiers. Now personally, I don't see this as a tactic for taking the working class forward.

Regardless of your personal thoughts, it strains the efforts of capitalist security forces which only improves the conditions of the working class in terms of potential for freedom.


What it actually does is takes those workers out of the working class, out of the daily class struggle and puts them in an entirely different situation.

Life in "the jungle" or on "the mountain" is not an "entirely different situation" from the sanctified "daily class struggle" of the urban working class. They are the same situation, in different locales. The actions of the people in "the mountains" or "the jungle" are not part of "the daily class struggle" in your mind, because you do not care about them. In truth you are being a bad political ally.


They don't even attempt to relate to workers as workers in any way at all.

First they are recruiting workers away from you, now they are failing to relate to workers. Which is it?


During the recent TEKEL struggle in Turkey, probably the biggest, most visible working class struggle in this country for many years, which involved thousands of workers permanently demonstrating on the streets of the capital and two 'general' strikes, these sort of groups were conspicuous only by their absence. I think that one of them attacked a police station in Istanbul, and claimed it was 'in Solidarity', but that is all.

They were "absent" yet also participated in a highly illegal and risky action in solidarity...sounds like an inconsistent account of the events.

[Devrim]

Agricultural workers are those who are paid wages to work on other people's land. Peasants own their own land. They are different classes and have different interests. The majority of Naxalite support is drawn from the former category,

As far as I am aware, having been to India, and the areas where Maoists are active, talked to people involved in politics there including many ex-Naxils, the support for this movement comes from the peasantry, and tribals. I think that this is quite well known. Would you care to present some evidence for the above assertion.


(I assume you think these people are not proletariat and in fact 'lumpen', it is the dead cops whose blood you cry over that are in fact lumpen)

You really have some strange ideas about what others think. I don't think I have said anything that suggests that I am crying over dead policemen at all.


Therefore the lowest rungs of the agrarian petit-bourgeoisie are a potentially progressive force in the class-conflict. They should not be viewed as an "enemy class" with "separate interests" necessarily, and it is necessary and commendable to recruit them into the cause of the proletariat. The Maoist success in this regard is a matter of resentment on your part.

I don't think that the "lowest rungs of the agrarian petit-bourgeoisie" are an enemy class, and I agree that they can be pulled behind working class struggle and be 'a potentially progressive force in the class-conflict'.

I think though the point is that the Naxiilite movement is not a working class struggle.

Also they are a social class that can vacillate behind whichever force is powerful within society, and as much as they have the possibility to become a progressive force, they also have the possibility to become a reactionary one.

Also it is strange that you think I have some resentment against 'Maoists'. Apart from on RevLeft, the points that I come across them are once a year when I see them on Mayday, and every few months when I read they have killed a couple of soldiers. They really don't infringe much on my life, and I am pretty sure I don't harbour any resentment of them. As I said above though you make some very strange assumptions about what others think.


]You're like a Stalinist teenager's parody of an "ultra-left"...the Chinese revolution was a socialist workers' revolution co-opted by totalitarian party bureaucrats. Are you just going to ignore the Chinese left-communists?

Really, were there workers councils? Did the working class have a role in the seizure of power, or was power seized by an army? The possibility of a Chinese revolution was essentially crushed in 1926-7 when the CCP supported those who massacred the workers.


The Stalinist ideology of "socialism in one state" is a blatant pretense for the maintainence of a bourgeois nation-state, however it is not precisely the same thing as nationalist ideology. Marxist-Leninists do not rally the German workers against the Jews

Actually there were points in the early thirties when the KPD did rally German workers against Jews. Stalinism and Maosim are both thoroughly nationalist ideologies. Maoism talks openly about a 'national bloc of four classes'.


What's delusional is the position of authoritative criticism you place yourself in regarding movements in other parts of the globe (Greece, India) which you know little about, given your own group's abject lack of success.

I don't think that it is in any way 'delusional' to try to understand the world. I imagine I have a little more idea about both Greece and India than you yourself. Greece is the country next door to us. I have been there many times. We are also in contact with Greek revolutionaries including the group that 'bricolage' referred to on the previous page, who we held a meeting with earlier this year (I wasn't at it). We have a section in India, and I have also been there. I don't claim to know either of the countries well, but probably a little better than you. In your own view what gives you the right to comment but me not.


I think people should only criticize when their criticisms are constructive, which clearly yours are not...

So if people who called themselves socialists in America were campaigning for Obama, do you think that it would be wrong to criticise. Do you think that there would be a constructive way to criticise it, or do you think that it should be denounced?


You are mystifying "the mountains", "the jungles", etc. as 'backwoods' terrain unencroached-upon by capitalism, whose events do not effect or concern the urban proletariat. You are substituting an internationalist, broad class approach in favor of cliquish and chauvinistic elitism.

I don't think so. My point is that these sort of groups take people out of the working class, and put them in small guerilla groups, effectively removing them from the daily class struggle.


We’ve heard enough about the “city” and the “country,” and particularly about the supposed ancient opposition between the two. From up close or from afar, what surrounds us looks nothing like that: it is one single urban cloth, without form or order, a bleak zone, endless and undefined, a global continuum of museum-like city centers and natural parks, of enormous suburban housing developments and massive agricultural projects, industrial zones and subdivisions, country inns and trendy bars: the metropolis. Certainly the ancient city existed, as did the cities of medieval and modern times. But there is no such thing as a metropolitan city. All territory is synthesized within the metropolis. Everything occupies the same space, if not geographically then through the intermeshing of its networks.

This whole piece is nonsense, but the bit that I have highlighted seems to have no idea of what the world is like outside of its own environment, which I presume is the US. Talk of everything being "one single urban cloth" comes across as very difficult for me to comprehend when I consider that yesterday I was talking to a girl who came from a village, only 60kms from the capital, which didn't even have electricity.


Regardless of your personal thoughts, it [killing a couple of soldiers] strains the efforts of capitalist security forces which only improves the conditions of the working class in terms of potential for freedom.

Really, the Turkish armed forces only have just over 990,000 more. I hardly think that two soldiers, of which they have a annual supply of conscript recruits puts much of a strain on them.


Life in "the jungle" or on "the mountain" is not an "entirely different situation" from the sanctified "daily class struggle" of the urban working class. They are the same situation, in different locales. The actions of the people in "the mountains" or "the jungle" are not part of "the daily class struggle" in your mind, because you do not care about them. In truth you are being a bad political ally.

Life in a Maoist guerilla group in the mountains is very different from the life of the urban working class. I find it can't strange that you can't see that. These groups are removed from the collective struggle of the working class in that they are not workers.


First they are recruiting workers away from you, now they are failing to relate to workers. Which is it?

They recruit very very few workers. The vast majority of people that these sort of organisations recruit are university students. They don't relate to the struggle of the working class in that they don't even attempt to address the concerns of workers.


They were "absent" yet also participated in a highly illegal and risky action in solidarity...sounds like an inconsistent account of the events.

No, it is not. These groups were totally absent from the actual struggle. The TEKEL struggle took place in Ankara. We were there constantly. I, personally, was there about three days a week for the whole of the struggle, and I never once saw these groups. They attacked a police station in an area of Istanbul, which is 7 hours away, something they do habitually about once a year anyway, and then claimed that it was 'in solidarity with TEKEL workers'. Personally I don't see much of a connection.

Devrim

[Devrim]

On the role of workers in Greek December, the introduction to 'Everyone to the streets: texts and communiques from the Greek uprising' gives a good overview;


An obvious weakness of the movement is that it had very little effect on the world of work, apart from the disruption of production and circulation in the centre of Athens because the riots created a chaotic situation. When workplaces such as colleges and town halls were occupied it was because they were convenient places to initiate other subversive activities rather than an attempt to disrupt a process of capitalist production. There were no strikes (apart from one by teachers on the day of the murdered student’s funeral) directly connected with the movement. Partly this can be explained by the class composition of the riots and Greek society in general, particularly the prevalence of small workplaces. However this does not mean that the movement had nothing to do with workers. Many insurgents were wage workers themselves, but it was not possible for them to do something in their workplaces.
...

Later in the same book an analysis by TPTG entitled 'The rebellious passage of a proletarian minority through a brief period of time' attempts to explain this with a reference to the high levels of precarious workers;


From our empirical knowledge, those workers who can be described either as “workers with a stable job” or non-precarious had a very limited participation in the rebellion, if any...

This seems to tie in with what I was saying. I think that one of the crucial questions is how to make that leap and involve “workers with a stable job” as these people, often state employees, are obviously at the centre of workers resistance and strikes against the current austerity programme. To me it appears that there is a gulf between those involved in the 'revolt', and workers' struggles.


TPTG go on to speak of the occupations of union buildings;

Which indicates that there were attempts to bridge this gap. The feeling that I got about this occupation was that it was the act of political militants, not a bad thing in itself merely an observation, rather than workers occupying their own union offices.

Devrim

[bricolage]

This seems to tie in with what I was saying. I think that one of the crucial questions is how to make that leap and involve “workers with a stable job” as these people, often state employees, are obviously at the centre of workers resistance and strikes against the current austerity programme.
But of course, I'd like to think those in the street would agree with this too, in terms of...

To me it appears that there is a gulf between those involved in the 'revolt', and workers' struggles.
I would agree but I don't think it is in any way unbridgeable.


The feeling that I got about this occupation was that it was the act of political militants, not a bad thing in itself merely an observation, rather than workers occupying their own union offices.I think the January occupation of ESIEA was actually done be media workers but I'm not sure. In terms of GSEE I was under the impression it was a TUC of sorts, meaning every worker would have some kind of link to it.

[bricolage]

We are also in contact with Greek revolutionaries including the group that 'bricolage' referred to on the previous page, who we held a meeting with earlier this year (I wasn't at it).
Is this TPTG you are talking about? Do you know anything much about them, all I know is what I read in the book I have.


This whole piece is nonsense, but the bit that I have highlighted seems to have no idea of what the world is like outside of its own environment, which I presume is the US.
They are French.

[Devrim]

Is this TPTG you are talking about? Do you know anything much about them, all I know is what I read in the book I have.

Yes, some Turkish people from the ICC met with them, though as I said I wasn't there. Their website is here (http://www.tapaidiatisgalarias.org/?page_id=105). What do you want to know?



They are French.

Which doesn't change the point. If anything France is more homogeneous in the gap between town and country than the US.

Devrim

[Devrim]

I would agree but I don't think it is in any way unbridgeable.

I don't think it is, but the first thing is recognising that it is important to bridge it.


I think the January occupation of ESIEA was actually done be media workers but I'm not sure. In terms of GSEE I was under the impression it was a TUC of sorts, meaning every worker would have some kind of link to it.

Yes, the GSEE is the main union confederation. What I meant though was that the impetus behind it came from political militants rather than workers in struggle. Of course it is a hard line to draw as political militants are also workers.

Devrim

[bricolage]

Yes, some Turkish people from the ICC met with them, though as I said I wasn't there. Their website is here (http://www.tapaidiatisgalarias.org/?page_id=105). What do you want to know?
Just what their general political positions were. I'll check the website, cheers.
Did anything useful come out of the meeting do you know?


Which doesn't change the point. If anything France is more homogeneous in the gap between town and country than the US.
I think it stems a lot from a Situationist hang up (psychogeography, derive) and Lefebvre to Deleuze type stuff. A lot of these theories while I think there is merit to them are only really applicable to urban environments, hence everything has to be seen as urban for them to be universally applicable.
Might be wrong though.

[Devrim]

Did anything useful come out of the meeting do you know?

I don't think that it was anything particularly formal. Our people were there on other business, and managed to meet up with them.

Devrim

[Delenda Carthago]

ICC is counsil communist?

[Devrim]

ICC is counsil communist?

It is a sort of mix of council communism with some ideas from the Italian left.

Devrim

[Delenda Carthago]

It is a sort of mix of council communism with some ideas from the Italian left.

Devrim
you mean workers autonomy?(lotta continua etc?)

[Devrim]

you mean workers autonomy?(lotta continua etc?)

No, the old Italian Left from the 1920s influenced by Bordiga. Basically the ICCs roots are in the groups of the Italian left, in exile after Mussolini came to power, who discovered council communism, so it is a sort of fusion of the ideas of the German (councilist) and Italian (Bordigist) lefts.

Devrim

[Omnia Sunt Communia]

having been to India, and the areas where Maoists are active, talked to people involved in politics there including many ex-Naxils

This is anecdotal evidence.

In the spirit of further poisoning the well, I will observe that members of groups such as the ICC, WSA, etc. tend to be very selective about the individuals from whom they obtain anecdotal evidence, maintaining insular correspondence with like-minded ideologues and tuning everyone else out.


and tribals.In the context of Indian racial politics, this is very problematic. The "tribals" are among the lowest rungs of the working-class, in no way separate from the proletariat but embodying its most exploited ranks. This would be equivalent to complaining in the US context about a movement comprised of "Negros" and "rednecks".


Would you care to present some evidence for the above assertion.In these sort of discussions, the words of one's enemies can often be illuminating


The Naxalites survive because they serve a specific constituency, which no one else is able to. These are the Dalit and tribal men and women and some other sections of the poor. The Naxalites have protected them and their women from the abuse and the violence of the ruling class and the State. Earlier, they could be exploited by them. Even minor functionaries of the police and revenue department used to ‘lift’ any of these women for their pleasure. The Naxalites have organised trade unions among them and have managed to increase the wages of the Bidi workers, the price of the Tendu leaves and other minor forest products. They have organised workers of mines and quarries and have waged successful struggles.


I don't think I have said anything that suggests that I am crying over dead policemen at all.You think peasants shooting police officers is not 'real class-struggle' even though the peasants are objectively exploited by the police.


Also they are a social class that can vacillate behind whichever force is powerful within society, and as much as they have the possibility to become a progressive force, they also have the possibility to become a reactionary one.Obviously, however claiming the Naxalites are not engaged in "class struggle" on the grounds that they recruit peasants serves no foreseeable purpose other than reinforcing Old Left dogma.


Also it is strange that you think I have some resentment against 'Maoists'. Apart from on RevLeft, the points that I come across them are once a year when I see them on Mayday, and every few months when I read they have killed a couple of soldiers. They really don't infringe much on my life, and I am pretty sure I don't harbour any resentment of them. As I said above though you make some very strange assumptions about what others think.The resentment is over the popularity of Marxist-Leninist groups in Turkey, India, and the Philippines in comparison to the left-communist tendencies.


were there workers councils?It is my understanding that they were created and then destroyed as in the USSR


Did the working class have a role in the seizure of power, or was power seized by an army?The two are not mutually exclusive, an "army" is any group of people with arms.


The possibility of a Chinese revolution was essentially crushed in 1926-7 when the CCP supported those who massacred the workers.There was not unanimous support among the communist forces, a left-communist tendency existed into the late 60s until it was crushed.


Actually there were points in the early thirties when the KPD did rally German workers against Jews.Even if the Naxalite movement is following that trajectory, (which it might be) it has not yet reached that point on the trajectory.

The Nazis ascended to power by rallying goyish workers against not only the bourgeois but also Jewish workers.
The Bolsheviks ascended to power by rallying workers of all nations against the bourgeois.

Obviously the end result was disastrous in both cases, however the latter is the preferred subjectivity to work with for the communist left.

It is still not too late for the Naxalite tendency to change its trajectory, in fact it is a possibility.


Maoism talks openly about a 'national bloc of four classes'.Collaboration between workers and national bourgeois is a separate beast from dividing workers along racial and national lines. I would rather deal with the hassle of a Marxist-Leninist mass-movement than a fascist mass-movement, as the the rank-and-file of the former is already likely to be indoctrinated into an ideology that's remotely anti-patriarchal, (at least superficially) anti-imperialist, oriented towards international class war, and so forth.


Greece is the country next door to us. I have been there many times.That does not make you an expert on the anarcho-insurrectionist tendency in Greece or tactical warfare in general.


In your own view what gives you the right to comment but me not.Your comments are not constructive nor do they make any tactical sense. (When does "class struggle" not involve gestures of revolutionary solidarity towards imprisoned comrades?)


So if people who called themselves socialists in America were campaigning for Obama, do you think that it would be wrong to criticise. Do you think that there would be a constructive way to criticise it, or do you think that it should be denounced?This analogy makes no sense.

A better analogy: Someone claiming that working-class black Obama fans attacking white police officers in celebration of the '08 election results is not "real class struggle" despite the fact that it's an example of a group of proles striking at their class enemy.

What would be more accurate is to say this specific example of class struggle is lacking in a coherent world-view and limited by its roots in social-democratic ideology.


My point is that these sort of groups take people out of the working class, and put them in small guerilla groups, effectively removing them from the daily class struggle.So by joining a "small guerrilla group" one is suddenly "out of the working class" and not subject to the brutal conditions of the "daily class struggle"? If only it were that easy!


yesterday I was talking to a girl who came from a village, only 60kms from the capital, which didn't even have electricity.And I know plenty of people in the urban metropolis who "[don't] even have electricity", I myself am an urban worker and do not have hot water.


Really, the Turkish armed forces only have just over 990,000 more. I hardly think that two soldiers, of which they have a annual supply of conscript recruits puts much of a strain on them.Still this is more strain on the system than is placed by the non-strategy of the social-pacifist "anti-adventurists" who find an excuse to condemn every revolutionary offensive.


Life in a Maoist guerilla group in the mountains is very different from the life of the urban working class.Life for a male Salvadoran day-laborer in rural Kentucky is very different than life for a Filipina single mother who works at a Wal-Mart distribution center in the Midwest. They are both, however, part of the international proletariat, as they both have nothing to lose but their chains.


These groups are removed from the collective struggle of the working class in that they are not workers.How are they not workers? Because they don't work in 'essential industry'?


They recruit very very few workers. The vast majority of people that these sort of organisations recruit are university students.Students are working-class.


They don't relate to the struggle of the working class in that they don't even attempt to address the concerns of workers.In order to establish that you would have to cite literature of the groups you criticize. As it is I remain skeptical to your claims, which mostly seem motivated by resentment over your own group's failure to "address the concerns of workers".


The TEKEL struggle took place in Ankara. We were there constantly. I, personally, was there about three days a week for the whole of the struggle, and I never once saw these groups. They attacked a police station in an area of Istanbul, which is 7 hours away, something they do habitually about once a year anyway, and then claimed that it was 'in solidarity with TEKEL workers'.So in other words a group of people who are likely spatially distant from where you were operating, were not found where you were operating, and were instead somewhere else closer to their spatial location, committing an act that involved a large amount of personal risk. Thus they failed to show "solidarity". This is the pedantry of your argument.

[Devrim]

Wow, it is difficult to know where to start after such a tirade fluctuating from point to point. May be the best way to start is with class, and perhaps you could benefit from going back and reading Marx as you advised me to a few post ago.



How are they [members of Maoist armed groups in the mountains in Turkey] not workers? Because they don't work in 'essential industry'?

They are not workers in that they are not workers. Members of these sort of groups are in it full time. They don't go to work and then do a bit of Maoism in the evening.


Life for a male Salvadoran day-laborer in rural Kentucky is very different than life for a Filipina single mother who works at a Wal-Mart distribution center in the Midwest. They are both, however, part of the international proletariat, as they both have nothing to lose but their chains.

Yes, they are, but they are both workers. Members of these Maoist groups in the mountains are not.


Students are working-class.

Students are not working class as a group as a body in the same way that school children are not. The student body is composed of various classes, and in this country, and I realise this is contrary to global trends, the number of students from working class backgrounds seems to be decreasing by the year.


In the context of Indian racial politics, this is very problematic. The "tribals" are among the lowest rungs of the working-class, in no way separate from the proletariat but embodying its most exploited ranks. This would be equivalent to complaining in the US context about a movement comprised of "Negros" and "rednecks".

It is nice to see that even though you are getting exactly the same sort of treatment on another thread, you seem quite happy to imply that I am sort of racist by implying it is the same as 'complaining about a movement comprised of "Negroes"' I presume it is something endemic to political discussion in North America. Actually tribals in India all use this English word to describe themselves. That is beside the point though.

The tribals are generally not a part of the working class. They are people who are completely marginalised from capitalist production, which has nothing to offer them. For the most part they are engaged in self-substance farming.

When you talk about them being among the 'most exploited ranks of the proletariat', they are not exploited in the sense that surplus value is extracted from their labour.

But then you seem to have a funny view of what 'exploitation' means anyway:


You think peasants shooting police officers is not 'real class-struggle' even though the peasants are objectively exploited by the police.

In what way are peasants exploited by the police? I don't even begin to understand that. Oh by the way, I didn't even mention the police. I mentioned the army.

Moving on from class, we come to what class struggle actually is:



The TEKEL struggle took place in Ankara. We were there constantly. I, personally, was there about three days a week for the whole of the struggle, and I never once saw these groups. They attacked a police station in an area of Istanbul, which is 7 hours away, something they do habitually about once a year anyway, and then claimed that it was 'in solidarity with TEKEL workers'. So in other words a group of people who are likely spatially distant from where you were operating, were not found where you were operating, and were instead somewhere else closer to their spatial location, committing an act that involved a large amount of personal risk. Thus they failed to show "solidarity". This is the pedantry of your argument.

The TEKEL struggle involved 12,000 workers directly, and through solidarity strikes about 1,0000,000. This is what class struggle is. Workers acting collectively to defend their own class interests. Throughout the entire struggle, the workers clearly understood that they couldn't win on their own, and called on other workers for solidarity strikes.

The question of what solidarity means is important. To the workers at TEKEL it clearly meant support on demonstrations and strike action. This is what they constantly called for during the strike.

Now what does attacking a police station do to build that solidarity within the working class? Does it in anyway bring more workers into the struggle? Does it in anyway undermine the power of the unions who all worked to stop the struggle extending?

In my opinion it does neither, but what it does do is to reinforce ideas that 'class struggle' is something done by militants in political organisations, not ordinary workers.

As for being dangerous, what of it?


In order to establish that [They don't relate to the struggle of the working class in that they don't even attempt to address the concerns of workers] you would have to cite literature of the groups you criticize. As it is I remain skeptical to your claims, which mostly seem motivated by resentment over your own group's failure to "address the concerns of workers".

It is a pretty impossible think to do, one because they are all in Turkish, and two because it is difficult to prove something negative.

On this you will have to believe me, or not as the case may be, that these sort of groups see that a socialist revolution can be made not from the struggle of the working class as workers, but by building armed groups and 'red base areas'.

Again we come back to the issue of resentment here. Really I am not a resentful person.

Which brings us on to the points about the Chinese revolution, whose leaders had a similar conception:



were there workers councils? It is my understanding that they were created and then destroyed as in the USSR.



Did the working class have a role in the seizure of power, or was power seized by an army? The two are not mutually exclusive, an "army" is any group of people with arms.

The Chinese revolution was not made by workers councils. If there were any workers councils in China then they were organisations created by the state, such as the 'works councils' today in German and Spain, and in no way revolutionary organisations.

Power was seized by the military forces of the CCP. It was a military campaign pure and simple.

This comes down to a basic difference in conception between us. For you socialist revolutions are made by the military force of those who call themselves socialists. For us they are made by the working class itself through its own struggle and by creating its own organisations, not political parties.

There are two more points I would like to address. The first is on nationalism and Maoist movements.



Even if the Naxalite movement is following that trajectory, (which it might be) it has not yet reached that point on the trajectory.

My point there was not to suggest that the Naxilite movement is in any way racist, but merely to respond to your point that the KPD in Germany didn't take that line. On occasion it did.

I have never heard it suggested that the Naxils take any racist line, but there have been other groups who identified as Marxist-Leninists who did. The PKK in this country, whilst it still claimed to be 'Marxist-Leninist' was involved in targeting members of religious/ethnic minorities.

My point was more about the second point you made though:


Collaboration between workers and national bourgeois is a separate beast from dividing workers along racial and national lines. I would rather deal with the hassle of a Marxist-Leninist mass-movement than a fascist mass-movement, as the the rank-and-file of the former is already likely to be indoctrinated into an ideology that's remotely anti-patriarchal, (at least superficially) anti-imperialist, oriented towards international class war, and so forth.

This doesn't mean that Marxist-Leninist groups are not nationalist though. There ideology tends to be nationalist to the core, in that often its 'internationalism' is actually based around ideas of 'national independence', which effectively in today's world means not being anti-imperialist, but anti-specific imperialists.

Finally on the subject of the division between town and countryside:


And I know plenty of people in the urban metropolis who "[don't] even have electricity", I myself am an urban worker and do not have hot water.

If this is true, and it depends what plenty means, it is quite shocking. I have never met anybody in this country who lived in big cities and didn't have electricity apart from the dwellers of the newest shanty towns. The point still remains though. While there may be people in the US cities who do not have electricity through their particular economic circumstances, their is still a difference in many countries between town and country, exemplified by the fact that in Turkish cities we have electricity and some villages don't.

On a personal level if you have no hot water, I would buy a second hand combi if I were you. I don't know how much they cost in the States, but here you can pick them up for about $40.

Devrim