Insurrectionary anarchism is not an ideological solution to all social problems, a commodity on the capitalist market of ideologies and opinions, but an on-going praxis aimed at putting an end to the domination of the state and the continuance of capitalism, which requires analysis and discussion to advance. We don’t look to some ideal society or offer an image of utopia for public consumption. Throughout history, most anarchists, except those who believed that society would evolve to the point that it would leave the state behind, have been insurrectionary anarchists.
Most simply, this means that the state will not merely
wither away, thus anarchists must attack, for waiting is defeat; what is
needed is open mutiny and the spreading of subversion among the
exploited and excluded. Here we spell out some implications that we and
some other insurrectionary anarchists draw from this general problem: if
the state will not disappear on its own, how then do we end its
existence? It is, therefore, primarily a practice, and focuses on the
organization of attack. These notes are in no way a closed or finished
product; we hope they are a part of an ongoing discussion, and we most
certainly welcome responses (interesting responses will be printed in
the next issue of Hot Tide). Much of this comes from past issues of
Insurrection and pamphlets from Elephant Editions (see the Insurrection
Page on our website or write us if interested).
1: THE STATE WILL NOT JUST DISAPPEAR; ATTACK
--The
State of capital will not “wither away,” as it seems many anarchists
have come to believe--not only entrenched in abstract positions of
‘waiting,’ but some even openly condemning the acts of those for whom
the creation of the new world depends on the destruction of the old.
Attack is the refusal of mediation, pacification, sacrifice,
accommodation, and compromise.
--It is through acting and learning
to act, not propaganda, that we will open the path to insurrection,
although propaganda has a role in clarifying how to act. Waiting only
teaches waiting; in acting one learns to act.
--The force of an
insurrection is social, not military. The measure for evaluating the
importance of a generalized revolt is not the armed clash, but on the
contrary the amplitude of the paralysis of the economy, of normality.
2. SELF-ACTIVITY versus managed revolt: from insurrection to revolution
--As
anarchists, the revolution is our constant point of reference, no
matter what we are doing or what problem we are concerned with. But the
revolution is not a myth simply to be used as a point of reference.
Precisely because it is a concrete event, it must be built daily through
more modest attempts which do not have all the liberating
characteristics of the social revolution in the true sense. These more
modest attempts are insurrections. In them the uprising of the most
exploited and excluded of society and the most politically sensitized
minority opens the way to the possible involvement of increasingly wider
strata of exploited on a flux of rebellion which could lead to
revolution.
--Struggles must be developed, both in the intermediate
and long term. Clear strategies are necessary to allow different methods
to be used in a coordinated and fruitful way.
--Autonomous action:
the self-management of struggle means that those that struggle are
autonomous in their decisions and actions; this is the opposite of an
organization of synthesis which always attempts to take control of
struggle. Struggles that are synthesized within a single controlling
organization are easily integrated into the power structure of present
society. Self-organized struggles are by nature uncontrollable when they
are spread across the social terrain.
3. UNCONTROLLABILITY versus managed revolt: the spread of attack
--It
is never possible to see the outcome of a specific struggle in advance.
Even a limited struggle can have the most unexpected consequences. The
passage from the various insurrections--limited and circumscribed--to
revolution can never be guaranteed in advance by any method.
--What
the system is afraid of is not these acts of sabotage in themselves, so
much as their spreading socially. Every proletarianized individual who
disposes of even the most modest means can draw up his or her
objectives, alone or along with others. It is materially impossible for
the State and capital to police the apparatus of control that operates
over the whole social territory. Anyone who really wants to contest the
network of control can make their own theoretical and practical
contribution. The appearance of the first broken links coincides with
the spreading of acts of sabotage. The anonymous practice of social
self-liberation could spread to all fields, breaking the codes of
prevention put into place by power.
--Small actions, therefore,
easily reproducible, requiring unsophisticated means that are available
to all, are by their very simplicity and spontaneity uncontrollable.
They make a mockery of even the most advanced technological developments
in counter-insurgency.
4. PERMANENT CONFLICTUALITY versus mediation with institutional forces
--Conflictuality
should be seen as a permanent element in the struggle against those in
power. A struggle which lacks this element ends up pushing us towards
mediating with the institutions, grows accustomed to the habits of
delegating and believing in an illusory emancipation carried out by
parliamentary decree, to the very point of actively participating in our
own exploitation ourselves.
--There might perhaps be individual
reasons for doubting the attempt to reach one’s aims with violent means.
But when non-violence comes to be raised to the level of a non-violable
principle, and where reality is divided into ‘good’ and ‘bad,’ then
arguments cease to have value, and everything is seen in terms of
submission and obedience. The officials of the anti-globalization
movement, by distancing themselves and denouncing others have clarified
one point in particular: that they see their principles--to which they
feel duty-bound--as a claim to power over the movement as a whole.
5. ILLEGALITY; insurrection isn’t just robbing banks
--Insurrectionary
anarchism isn’t a morality on survival: we all survive in various ways,
often in compromise with capital, depending on our social position, our
talents and tastes. We certainly aren’t morally against the use of
illegal means to free ourselves from the fetters of wage slavery in
order to live and carry on our projects, yet we also don’t fetishize
illegalism or turn it into some kind of religion with martyrs; it is
simply a means, and often a good one.
6. INFORMAL ORGANIZATION; not professional revolutionaries or activists, not permanent organizations
From party/union to self-organization:
--Profound
differences exist within the revolutionary movement: the anarchist
tendency towards quality of the struggle and its self-organization and
the authoritarian tendency towards quantity and centralization.
--Organization
is for concrete tasks: thus we are against the party, syndicate and
permanent organization, all of which act to synthesize struggle and
become elements of integration for capital and the state. Their purpose
comes to be their own existence, in the worst case they first build the
organization then find or create the struggle. Our task is to act;
organization is a means. Thus we are against the delegation of action or
practice to an organization: we need generalized action that leads to
insurrection, not managed struggles. Organization should not be for the
defense of certain interests, but of attack on certain interests.
--Informal
organization is based on a number of comrades linked by a common
affinity; its propulsive element is always action. The wider the range
of problems these comrades face as a whole, the greater their affinity
will be. It follows that the real organization, the effective capacity
to act together, i.e. knowing where to find each other, the study and
analysis of problems together, and the passing to action, all takes
place in relation to the affinity reached and has nothing to do with
programs, platforms, flags or more or less camouflaged parties. The
informal anarchist organization is therefore a specific organization
which gathers around a common affinity.
The anarchist minority and the exploited and excluded:
--We
are of the exploited and excluded, and thus our task is to act. Yet
some critique all action that is not part of a large and visible social
movement as “acting in the place of the proletariat.” They counsel
analysis and waiting, instead of acting. Supposedly, we are not
exploited alongside the exploited; our desires, our rage and our
weaknesses are not part of the class struggle. This is nothing but
another ideological separation between the exploited and subversives.
--The
active anarchist minority is not slave to numbers but continues to act
against power even when the class clash is at a low level within the
exploited of society. Anarchist action should not therefore aim at
organizing and defending the whole of the class of exploited in one vast
organization to see the struggle from beginning to end, but should
identify single aspects of the struggle and carry them through to their
conclusion of attack. We must also move away from the stereotypical
images of the great mass struggles, and the concept of the infinite
growth of a movement that is to dominate and control everything.
--The
relationship with the multitude of exploited and excluded cannot be
structured as something that must endure the passage of time, i.e. be
based on growth to infinity and resistance against the attack of the
exploiters. It must have a more reduced specific dimension, one that is
decidedly that of attack and not a rearguard relationship.
--We can
start building our struggle in such a way that conditions of revolt can
emerge and latent conflict can develop and be brought to the fore. In
this way a contact is established between the anarchist minority and the
specific situation where the struggle can be developed.
7. THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE SOCIAL: individualism and communism, a false problem
--We embrace what is best in individualism and what is best in communism.
--Insurrection
begins with the desire of individuals to break out of constrained and
controlled circumstances, the desire to reappropriate the capacity to
create one’s own life as one sees fit. This requires that they overcome
the separation between them and their conditions of existence. Where the
few, the privileged, control the conditions of existence, it is not
possible for most individuals to truly determine their existence on
their terms. Individuality can only flourish where equality of access to
the conditions of existence is the social reality. This equality of
access is communism; what individuals do with that access is up to them
and those around them. Thus there is no equality or identity of
individuals implied in true communism. What forces us into an identity
or an equality of being are the social roles laid upon us by our present
system. There is no contradiction between individuality and communism.
8. WE ARE THE EXPLOITED, we are the contradiction: this is no time for waiting
--Certainly,
capitalism contains deep contradictions which push it towards
procedures of adjustment and evolution aimed at avoiding the periodic
crises which afflict it; but we cannot cradle ourselves in waiting for
these crises. When they happen they will be welcomed if they respond to
the requirements for accelerating the elements of the insurrectional
process. As the exploited, however, we are the fundamental contradiction
for capitalism. Thus the time is always ripe for insurrection, just as
we can note that humanity could have ended the existence of the state at
any time in its history. A rupture in the continual reproduction of
this system of exploitation and oppression has always been possible.
http://www.anti-politics.net/distro/download/some-notes.pdf
http://translationcollective.wordpress.com/2010/03/08/some-notes-on-insurrectionary-anarchism/
http://www.reocities.com/kk_abacus/kka/NTINSUR.html
auch auf deutsch zu finden...
Einige Notizen zu aufständischem Anarchismus
Aufständischer Anarchismus ist keine ideologische Lösung für alle Probleme, keine Ware auf dem kapitalistischen Markt der Ideologien und Meinungen, vielmehr eine ständige Praxis mit dem Ziel, die Beherrschung durch den Staat und die Fortsetzung des Kapitalismus zu beenden. Dies erfordert Analyse und Diskussion, um sich weiterzubilden. Wir haben kein Rezept für eine ideale Gesellschaft und liefern nicht das Bild einer Utopie für den allgemeinen Konsum. Die meisten AnarchistInnen der Geschichte, ausgenommen derer die glaubten, dass die Gesellschaft sich zu dem Punkt hinentwickeln würde, an dem sie den Staat zurückläßt, waren aufständische AnarchistInnen. Einfach gesagt bedeutet dies, dass der Staat nicht einfach dahinschwinden wird. Vielmehr müssen wir AnarchistInnen angreifen, denn warten ist eine Niederlage; was wir brauchen ist offene Meuterei und das Verbreiten von Subversion unter den Ausgebeuteten und Ausgeschlossenen. Anarchismus ist deshalb hauptsächlich eine Praxis und konzentriert sich auf die Organisierung des Angriffs. Hier erläutern wir einige Schlussfolgerungen, die wir und einige andere aufständische AnarchistInnen aus diesem generellen Problem ziehen: Wenn der Staat nicht von selbst verschwindet, wir können wir also seine Existenz beenden? Diese Notizen sind in keiner Weise ein in sich geschlossenes oder abgeschlossenes Produkt; wir hoffen, dass sie Teil einer sich fortführenden Diskussion sind, und mit Sicherheit heißen wir Antworten willkommen. Vieles hiervon kommt direkt aus den letzten Ausgaben von Insurrection (englische aufständische Zeitung, irregulär erschienen d.Ü.) und Pamphleten von Elephant Editions, London.
1. DER STAAT WIRD NICHT EINFACH VERSCHWINDEN: ANGRIFF
2. SELBSTBESTIMMTES HANDELN versus verwaltete Revolte: Vom Aufstand zur Revolution
3. UNKONTROLLIERBARKEIT versus verwaltete Revolte: Die Verbreitung des Angriffs
4. PERMANANTE KONFLIKTBEREITSCHAFT versus Mediation mit den institutionellen Kräften
5. ILLEGALITÄT: Aufstand bedeutet nicht nur Banken auszurauben
6. INFORMELLE ORGANISIERUNG: Keine professionellen Revolutionäre oder AktivistInnen, keine permanente Organisation
Von der Partei/Gewerkschaft zur Selbstorganisierung
Die anarchistische Minderheit und die Ausgebeuteten und Ausgeschlossenen
7. DAS INDIVIDUUM UND DAS SOZIALE: Individualismus und Kommunismus, ein falsches Problem
8. WIR SIND DIE AUSGEBEUTETEN, wir sind der Widerspruch: Dies ist nicht die Zeit zu warten
quelle: http://translationcollective.wordpress.com/2010/03/08/einige-notizen-zu-aufstandischem-anarchismus/
Schiebt euch die MP sonst wohin!