As opposed to the electoral bourgeois farce on 7th May, the 1st of May and any ensuing weekend has for nearly a century and a half been a time for working class celebration. This encompassing organising, actions, catch ups with friends and comrades, community events and remembering the past with a determined optimistic look to the future. This is particularly the case for us as anarchists.
For those who don’t know, the modern incarnation of May Day began as a day of remembrance in the 1880s. This is the case from the start for fallen anarchist comrades and then over the years, more generally, for workers facing the wrath of the capitalist system.
For in 1887, in reaction to an explosion at an event in Chicago’s Haymarket Square the year before, attended by an enormous number of (40,000) striking workers during an increasingly mass bitter struggle for an eight-hour day, the state used the event as the pretext to sentence comrades of ours to death in cold blood. This was despite no evidence whatsoever having proven a link to the bomb’s manufacture or consequent explosion. The consequent killings which shook the world, took 5 of our comrades’ lives, including 4 who had the death penalty enacted upon them and 1 who committed suicide before they could be hanged. 3 more were convicted before being later pardoned. The funeral procession of the slain was followed by thousands upon thousands of workers. They became known as the “Haymarket Martyrs”.
“There will come a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today.” (August Spies – often cited as his final and bravely defiant words on the scaffold.)
There have been attempts by some political party and trade union officials in the West to muddy the reasons for celebrating May Day as International Workers’ Day. There have been entire May Day cancellations by governments, including in Spain (particularly Barcelona) in 1937 in order to crush anarchist inspired workers resisting an onslaught upon them in street battles. There have been hideous parades of military might in state capitalist Soviet Eastern Europe on May Day until the 1990s, which continue on to this day in Stalinist states.
In the face of all this, we continue to remember the real origins of this day and look to a time of serious potential challenges to and then emancipation from state and capital. This, a time of resistance and joy. A time when we can really begin to live in harmony with the planet and the incredible other species that inhabit it. A time to end conflicts over resources. A time for internationalism and real solidarity. A time to gain control over our own lives. A time when this system can finally be flushed down the toilet. A time for history to finally begin.
Class struggle anarchists have often taken to the streets and attended events on this important day and weekend for us over the years – at both official labour movement events, where we have ducked and dived the dull stultified atmosphere and ludicrous Mao and Stalin banners, to bring our revolutionary message of emancipation for all. And at unofficial events, where we have danced, celebrated, shared literature, marched and directly challenged those who defend the current, yet in reality, obsolete system of capital and state.
This year as a group, though small in number, following a stall at the Hull Radical Bookfair on 25th April, we will be at events in South Yorkshire (Barnsley, 2nd May) and the Northeast (Gateshead, 4th May) as well as Manchester and Salford. We may yet be at further events too over the May Day weekend?! We will be chatting, celebrating and trying to learn lessons from the past, whilst talking to others about our potential futures.
It is the centenary of the General Strike of 1926 in the UK. Many leftists will be showing degrees of simplistic nostalgia over this. For us, whilst noting some impressive local examples of determined working class unity and direct action at that time; we will point out that this event revealed the hopeless nature of official, capital friendly, trade union perspectives and of those claiming to represent us (the Labour Party and so-called Communist Party at that time but not restricted to them). For in reality, any early enthusiasm or claims of workers potentially having any real power through this event quickly abated as its limited nature became apparent and as it failed to shake the base of the society and profit system in each we live. We need to be honest about this but not despondent.
For our class can still challenge and potentially overcome the present system. Be it through, for example, autonomous networked direct action, strike and community committees, popular assemblies and workers’ councils, or / and novel new bodies that display a development of genuine revolutionary content.
Emancipation and liberation are not guaranteed or in any way inevitable. There is also much despondency currently, many recent defeats, a horrendous international conflict situation and a quietism too often displayed by our class in the social war. However, despite all this, with the mass of resources available to humankind now and for us to thrive (moreover, as well as survive?), they need now be closer than ever.
As such, we wish to convey with hope and a determination based upon real potentials, revolutionary May Day greetings to all friends, comrades and workers throughout the world.
“I am an anarchist: I have no apology to make to a single man, woman or child, because I am an anarchist, because anarchism carries the very germ of liberty in its womb” (Lucy Parsons, anarchist organiser – on both anarchism and on our fallen comrades, murdered in 1887 by the state).
“Does this rising generation know that those who inaugurated the eight-hour day were put to death at the command of capital?”
7th May is the latest D-Day, or so we are told. For then there is another large scale round of that popularity racket, known as election time. This is the time when many of us are supposed to rubber stamp our local overlords or for those living in Scotland and Wales, to stick crosses in boxes at a national level. Either way, as is often the case, offered up is a media sc(r)um fixated on statistics, casting judgement upon a UK level of who is up, who is down and why on earth it’s supposed to make such a ruddy difference?
It’s your say, so they say. As if as members of the working class, we really get one in this system of state and capital. They’re taking us for fools. For if we believe we have a stake or a real say as things are, then we’ll believe anything! As some long lasting local graffiti used to inform, “Slit your own throat! Vote!!”
This time around, we are told we have the incredulous primary (non)“choices” of Labour, Liberal Democrats, Greens, SNP, Plaid Cymru, Conservatives and Reform. Despite claims that local elections are to elect the most effective individual candidate in your area and are about day to day issues (potholes, building problems etc), in reality you can bet your life that the main political parties will treat it as a national contest and boast afterward as such. So let’s look briefly in turn at this shower:
Labour – emerging at the beginning of the 20th century to represent the upper echelons of the organised labour movement. Even at its supposed most sexy in the 1940s, witnessed was the hideous spectacle of the armed forces being sent to break the actions of striking workers and the development of “placing a union jack on nuclear weapons” at home. Whilst support for right wing forces in civil conflict (in Greece for one) occurred.
Nowadays, this Party seems to spend most of its time in government dreaming up new ways to screw the working class in a supposedly slightly less enthusiastic way than the conservative party. Either way, the reality is we face yet more attacks and oppression, especially if we are poor, live in substandard accommodation, dare protest, happen to have a disability, are young, old, trans, refugees…. The list is long for sure! Meanwhile, more dodgy dealings with the rich and powerful, including characters with links to those preying upon young vulnerable people, are revealed on an almost weekly basis. Whilst at times, like in a recent meme, you could actually imagine the Prime Minister donning a Reform jumper. Them and the Labour Party generally, having enabled that motley crew so well over the last couple of years.
Some claim that the current Labour Party isn’t really the Labour Party. However, given this party’s crap history, says who? They certainly aren’t averse to obsessions with attacks on civil liberties in the name of “law and order” and with dealings with militaristic oppressors of migrants and with those engaged in other viciously regressive causes – e.g. link ups with Palantir or seemingly even backroom talks with figures in Reform (as is said to be possibly happening in Scotland and is certainly happening with Labour Party backers in Unite the Union in Birmingham).
Liberal Democrats – a party so ludicrous that it largely emerged from considering the Labour Party too left wing! Consider that!
Largely insignificant unless it “holds the balance of power”. We saw the result of that in the early 2010s, when its vote share collapsed after jumping into bed with the conservative led government; it craving power at any cost and ending up being labelled the “Fiberal Democrats” or “Fibs” for short!
Conservatives / Tory Party – historically the natural home of ruling class representatives. For 200 years, this organisation has headed up the majority of governments within the UK. Credited (if that’s the correct term?) by some as one of the originators of pushing through on the latest phase of capitalist attacks, the so-called, “neo-liberal” garb. Often the bête-noire of many in the working class, they clearly have nothing to offer but enriching themselves, austerity, vicious class and divide and rule culture wars. Were last seen claiming intellectual superiority over the rest of us whilst getting pissed at parties during a pandemic and being headed up by a perpetually useless buffoon. May or may not finally be increasingly irrelevant?
SNP – often does rather well in elections by claiming to simply not be the Tory (or Labour) Party at Westminster. However, were actually labelled the “Tartan Tories” with some justification. Clearly helped enable the formation of the Boris Johnson led Tory government after triggering an election in 2019 with the Liberal Democrats when the outcome was clear to all. Its record in government is not nearly as “progressive” as is claimed and is obviously nationalistic, with all the dangers that that entails for us as a class.
Plaid Cymru – as with the SNP, picks up support by officially differentiating from the useless parties at Westminster. May again come out the elections as being the largest party in the Welsh Assembly but despite claims to be “socialist” in its texts since the early 1980s, clearly does not support the abolition of capitalism nor does it support internationalism.
Greens – the latest darlings for political nerds and those who feel homeless in the current incarnation of the Labour Party. If as claim, try to actually put “People before Profit” within capitalism (using notably increased taxation etc), the result will very likely be downturn, capital flight and recession. Whilst, if they actually head up a government, much potential opposition to them may well be worryingly quiet and disillusioned. This amidst claims of, “If not us, then you’ll get them” (the forces of the right).
If, as some in this party claim, as a government they could simply print money to spend on needs and the environment, then an inflationary spiral will result. They fantasise that capitalism – the profit system – can be reformed to meet human need, when all experience shows the opposite. In reality, the Greens (English and Welsh, and Scottish variants) are much more likely to go the way of past dreams of reformism (e.g. in the Labour Party) – i.e. died at the altar of capital whilst government gets used for its usual state role, as a means of oppression and enforced exploitation of the working class.
Much of the previous talk of the challenges facing the environment and climate change have already gone rather quiet as it now follows a more traditional liberal left populist route. Meanwhile, the new Green Party leadership declared that in a desire to “placate the Daily Mail”, it must look “respectable”. This meaning manipulations, so that its upper bodies control what the membership and local party “activists” get to vote on and who to pick as local candidates. Unlikely to be long before it follows its counterparts in Germany and elsewhere, on the right of social democracy, cheer leading capital, war preparations, NATO and social attacks upon the working class. “Respectable”? Oh aye!
Reform / Restore – darlings of the nativist wing of capital and notable parts of the media. Xenophobic, nationalistic but currently, mostly snake oil sales people and grifters. Fans of out and out authoritarianism, wars (especially in the Middle East), fossil fuels…. You get the picture. If it’s a really crap idea for humankind and planetary well-being, you can bet your life they’ll champion it! A few years ago were castigated as “swivel eyed loons” but are now seen as possible saviours of capital by turbo charging it and its attacks, in the light of economic crisis after crisis.
Claim to be on the side of the “white working class” and figures of the “people” – always the non or ill-defined, “people”. Who of us have mates hanging about in steak houses in red or orange corduroy trousers, landowning tweeds and wellies, whilst ordering meals that cost hundreds? If we want to hang out about with a bloke talking bollocks in a bar whilst getting pished, we could just find some poor sod of that ilk down a local watering hole. At least they might have actual moments of incisiveness, clarity and positivity? In reality of course, they are clearly part of the actual ruling elite and no supporters of the working class. Their only role they see for us is to fall for their manipulations, vote for them, and get possibly used as suckers to divide up any effective opposition to them and the current system they support.
These three word sloganeering bullshitting wonders, these multi millionaire non wage earning parasites, clearly would cheer on further attacks upon us whilst rolling around laughing, taking us for mugs, enriching themselves at our expensive. What they do love unsurprisingly, is the bourgeois – petit and more so, large.
So, with that bunch and with electoral representatives representing an executive of the ruling class, why on earth would we engage in electoral voting at a local or national level? After all, the government and state bodies will win again. That, we can be sure of. We clearly all need to do something about this!
Yet, if we tell people that we are refusing to vote, we will likely get castigated as enabling the far right or at least not stopping it. Voting, like the belief in there being no alternative to capitalism and state has become somehow sacrosanct. However, voting over the past century and a half has done nothing to undermine the present system, not even to pull the rug from its most right wing elements. Voting in elections does not escape us disappearing down the plughole of vicious reaction, let alone lead to any kind of liberation.
We in turn however, will not take any delight in return in saying, we “told you so”, after we all face more shit on an ensuing daily basis. Any attacks hurt us just as much. We are members of the working class and hope that many more will achieve a level of confidence and class consciousness through direct engagement in the class struggle that will help provide the basis for turning the tables and in gaining a world of equality and liberty. The vast majority of us have that potential. We are not in any way special in this.
Meanwhile, for those who genuinely believe that Parliament can be used as an instrument to further a revolution (no not you, the farce of fantasy that is Your Party), we say how can this be so when this is an arena where we as a class are at our weakest and where for standing now as a candidate, you can pretty much go bankrupt trying to pay a lost deposit? Then there’s the long time thorny tactic of setting out to abolish the state by first capturing it. A questionable case of, “Now you see it, now you don’t”? There being a clear temptation to hold onto the state, “Until such a time as….” – this time then never arriving. William Morris was right in seeing Parliament being necessarily turned into a massive dung heap in any future of emancipation.
So, on 7th May, despite naysayers, we and like minded comrades will go on vote strike. We may be giving out revolutionary literature and may perhaps “spoil” / propagandise our ballot papers? We may be discussing alternatives to the current horrific situation with our workmates, friends and neighbours? We may be busy carrying out care duties or other responsibilities? We may simply decide that the best option is for us on the day is to “stay home” and even actually enjoy some much needed “down time”?!
All of this shows a desire to assert our autonomy and is more useful than providing a mandate to be exploited and oppressed. Yet, we realise it is far from enough. For a start, if we spoil the ballot paper and they are seen as invalid often to the annoyance of our dear master class, they are still included in the votes cast tally. If we stay home, we are often seen as merely apolitical, uninterested and uninformed – the cheeky sods!
Moreover and more importantly, we clearly cannot transform and abolish this profit driven and state based system alone. Real change and liberation doesn’t only take much more effort than simply sticking an “X” on a piece of paper every 2 to 5 years or so. It entails mass resistance, class wide, possibly through autonomous strike committees, the emergence of networked popular assemblies and workers’ councils?! These bodies and organisational types displaying clearly recallable delegates engaged in rotations of posts and responsibilities within a horizontal structure; ones that have similarly appeared in the past. Or they may be novel new bodies? There is no blue print in a mass collective movement for emancipation and by a class moving to abolish itself as a class and as such, class divided society.
Here, what matters most is that any content can lead to social revolution, a transformation of the social relationship and material conditions of capital and end that monopoly of a body of violence and oppression, the state. At the moment, this may be seen as a real stretch. After all, working class struggle appears to be at a very weak point in the “West” and any anarchist movement here, on the surface, seems tiny and badly divided; practically on its arse.
Yet, an emancipatory victory in the class struggle is still required to ensure our well being, our collective and individual potentials. It’s required now for possibly even our very survival? And even locally, small direct action based skirmishes can end in at least temporary victories, e.g. in self managed small scale strikes and against property developers at times and for renters. Obviously, this is barely a start in itself and only a social revolution can guarantee any victory to be permanent. However, they can provide some much needed confidence.
Meanwhile, class struggle anarchism may yet emerge in surprising strength. In parts of the world that were seemingly miles away from its known strongholds to us, movements have expanded recently, e.g. in South Asia and on the African continent. Closer to our own locale, internationalist class struggle anarchists are now beginning to co-ordinate themselves in networks with like minded comrades and organisations in opposition to capitalist wars and militarism in an increasing number of regions, and against the social peace at home. This in itself offers some hope for the future.
By refusing to take part in the electoral farce, we have every right to complain and oppose daily attacks upon us. We have not supported in any way, the murderous wars of capital fuelled by resource exploitation, power expansion and an increasingly frequent desire to deal with its crisis caused by overproduction and / or a falling rate of profit, possibly combined with economic sector disproportionality etc, by armed conflict. We won’t provide a mandate to parasites to exploit and oppress us, not any of us! Nor in any way, support or cheer on our immiseration.
We argue against voting and then having to run to the nearest toilet! We will continue to argue for our liberty and emancipation and we wish this for every single one of our class members – and with it, humankind. We will continue to organise with members of our class to attain this aim.
We do recognise that the emancipation of the working class is clearly the task of the working class itself. It ever was and we must look forward to a future based on liberty and egalitarianism with determination, in the face of an era of seemingly perpetual pessimism and gloom! The alternative hardly bares thinking about. Instead of engaging in the electoral farce, let’s organise, learn together, agitate and speed the day! There’s still a world to win!
From Tridni Valka – Here we propose our English translation of a text initially published by comrades in Ecuador. Globally we agree with the text, especially we would like to emphasize strong affirmations putting forward: 1/ the proletarian and communist historical party against the conception of (bourgeois) political party; 2/ the correct definition of the militant tasks of revolutionary minorities in the current period of global counterrevolution but with “local” and not yet generalized class confrontations in many parts of the world; 3/ we also appreciate the critics towards activism and spontaneism versus strong programmatical reaffirmation and development… Nevertheless, the text should be more discussed for the issues related to communization, real subsumption, affirmation of the proletariat and transition period…
What is determinant for social revolution is the historical and global context, or better said, the nature of the period in which the class antagonism exists, not the consciousness, the will, or the activity of leftist organizations and individualities in this and any other country. In the history of global class antagonism, there are only two types of periods: counterrevolutionary period and revolutionary period. The present one is a counter-revolutionary period.1
Roughly speaking, the main characteristics of a counterrevolutionary period are: 1) that the bourgeoisie exercises its class domination in all aspects of society: from the economic to the ideological, so it is also on the offensive or attack in all aspects in order to maintain such domination; and, 2) that the proletariat can only wage defensive or reformist struggles (for demands) as a class of labor/capital and not as a revolutionary class. The balance of forces tilts thus in favor of the first class, and not the second one.
More clearly: in a counterrevolutionary period, the bourgeoisie is strong or ruling class and the proletariat is weak or dominated class.
This does not mean that during a counterrevolutionary period there are no revolts and insurrections. In fact, during the current counterrevolutionary period, specifically so far in the 21st century, there have been international revolts that have even threatened to alter or reverse the balance of forces between the classes: in particular, those of 2000, 2008, 2011 and 2019. (The historical and material causes of the defeat of the revolts and the strength of the counterrevolution in this century are subject of another article).
The system of capitalist domination, with the State at its head, has different tentacles. Of which, social democracy, reformism or the left of Capital, is one of the most important and strongest, because it is the capitalist counterrevolution that disguises itself as red and even black in the bosom of the exploited and oppressed so that their protests are democratically put under the bushel – fighting against this or that law, against this or that government, for this or that right, etc. – and do not attack the roots of the system: the social dictatorship of value in process or, in simpler words, having to work to pay and pay to live, thanks to what the rich and powerful are what they are at the expense of our class of increasingly precarious and impoverished wage slaves. As long as it stays that way, nothing fundamental will change.
Therefore, in a counterrevolutionary period like the one we are living, all left activism (marches, sit-ins, assemblies, symbolic actions, etc.) is reformist and does not even tickle Capital and the State. Slogans like “confronting the bourgeois and imperialist onslaught”, “not giving up the streets”, “strengthening the unity processes of the popular sectors”, “accumulating forces”, “preparing the popular offensive”, etc., brandished by the militants of some local leftist organizations, are convincing but false reasons for seeking to reproduce the Capital-State or the bourgeois-democratic order in another form (“defending public services”, the “rights of the people”, their dream of a “popular government”, the “redistribution of wealth”, etc.) and, therefore, the counterrevolution disguised in red and black, even if they have good intentions or are not aware of it, and even if their discourse and their action appear “radical”.
This is so because Capital is an impersonal social relation and, therefore, immensely more powerful than the personalities, wills, ideologies and political activities of leftist organizations and individualities. Moreover, Capital subsumes or encompasses, dominates and reproduces within itself the “people”, the working class, its leftist organizations and its democratic protests.
In this sense, left activism is also opportunist, because the political organizations behind it take advantage of the conjuncture imposed by the ruling class as an opportunity to jump on stage, to propagate their political ideology (the social-democratic program disguised as “Marxism” and even “anarchism”), to recruit more people and thus have more power than other political organizations. Thus, they reproduce the logic of the mafias or business rackets that compete with each other in order to accumulate more capital, power and territory, but “from below and from the left”.
Although sometimes it is not even that anymore: leftist activism ends up being, obsessively and compulsively, action for action’s sake in order to appear more rebellious and even more “revolutionary” than others in social networks. A miserable show of struggle against capitalism, ironically and pathetically and finally turned into commodity and image by this same society of the spectacle. Something that, by the way, is very typical of the leftist petty bourgeoisie: the appearance, the pose, the theatrics. In such a way, leftist activism reproduces the competition and spectacle of the capitalist society against which it claims to be fighting in the streets.
Far away and contrary to all that, the only thing that would really and mortally hit the bourgeoisie would be for the anonymous and self-organized proletariat to expropriate and massively communize all production and distribution, so that what is produced should be produced solely to satisfy collective needs directly and free of charge. By attacking and destroying by force, at the same time, the repressive and bureaucratic apparatus of the State. All this can only be upheld by a revolutionary power of an anti-State and international character, because the social revolution is crushed when it does not impose itself on the counterrevolution nor internationalizes itself. In short: communization, insurrection and world Commune.
If the global revolt of 2019 shook the world bourgeoisie, it was because it constituted a breaking point that reopened the historical possibility of social revolution. That is why it reacted so violently and shrewdly in all its forms and levels to date, namely: brutal State repression to crush the revolts, counter-insurrectional use of the pandemic, imperialist war (in Ukraine and Palestine), narco-terrorism, neo-fascism, “alt-right” and post-modern left or “woke” activism alike, elections, etc. Just remembering 2019, the world bourgeoisie is once again trembling with fear. Since then, its strategy is the preventive counterrevolution, because it seeks to prevent at all costs a new global revolt that could become a world revolution. Meanwhile, under the present counterrevolutionary period where the balance of forces is unfavorable for the proletariat, all left activism is reformist, opportunist and spectacular.
For all these strong reasons, and for no other, we as revolutionary proletarians or communists, today we keep our distance from activism and instead we focus with seriousness and commitment to theoretical activity; that is, to the production and dissemination of revolutionary theory for revolutionary practice.
Now, this theoretical activity that we communists uphold is not “intellectualism” or “purism”, as we are often “criticized” by left-wing activists. It is a form and a moment of class antagonism and, therefore, of revolutionary practice. Yes, theory is in reality theoretical practice. In the materialist conception of history and human praxis – in the full extension of the latter – theoretical practice means the process of production of new knowledge that, in the heat of the development of productive forces and social struggles, seeks not only to interpret but to transform social reality. Therefore, communist theoretical practice is the production of critical and revolutionary theory which, being closely linked to class antagonism, seeks communist revolution.
More precisely: making use of the fundamental categories of the critique of political economy, communist theoretical practice today is the production of concrete analyses of the current capitalist conditions and, above all, of the concrete proletarian struggles in order to contribute to their self-clarification and radicalization or, better said, to contribute to produce the revolutionary rupture within them. Based on this, the communist strategy and tactics for the 21st century can be elaborated. Therein lies its necessity and its importance or, if preferred, its raison d’être and its meaning, today.
In the same perspective, it can also be affirmed that to produce and spread communist theory or to maintain and develop the revolutionary positions of the proletariat against capitalism, against the ideology of the ruling class and, in particular, against Social Democracy within the proletariat itself, even if in a very minority way and against the current, is a practice whose objective is to reappropriate, preserve and sharpen “the weapons of criticism” for when capitalism in crisis and class antagonism will open a period of social revolution in which situations will arise where they will be massively substituted by “the criticism of weapons”: the world proletarian insurrection for communism.
Indeed, in those revolutionary situations typical of a revolutionary period, the revolutionary theory and class consciousness become material forces or practical weapons in the hands of the proletarian masses fed up with being proletarians and who go on the offensive against Capital, the State and class society until destroying and overcoming them. Because “only a mass communist revolution can produce a mass communist consciousness” (Marx, The German Ideology). Communist theory foresees such a revolutionary situation and subjectively prepares the proletariat for it.
In short: during a counterrevolutionary period like the present one, communist theoretical practice is not only communist resistance, but activity of strategic foresight and preparation for the communist revolution.
Obviously, it will not be revolutionary theory and propaganda that will trigger the revolution, but the objective and subjective conditions created by capitalism in crisis itself and class antagonism so that the proletariat can no longer and no longer wants to live as such and, then, feels the revolution as an immediate human need to be satisfied. Likewise, to abolish and overcome Capital, the State and class society, mass self-organization, antagonistic solidarity and revolutionary violence of the proletariat in the process of self-abolition as a class are necessary.
However, revolutionary theory and propaganda are also necessary, even indispensable as critical-practical weapons of the community of revolutionary proletarians, alongside our best weapons, which are solidarity and mutual support. Because if some proletarians around the world are today devoting themselves to the communist theory and propaganda, it is because they are fed up with the life they suffer under capitalism and because they are driven by the passion for communism. As Marx wrote, “criticism is not a passion of the head, but the head of passion”. That is why we affirm that communist theoretical practice is not only communist resistance, but strategic and passionate foresight and preparation for the communist revolution.
This does not mean that we communists should “wait until all conditions are met for revolutionary struggle” and, therefore, that we do not participate in the struggles for the demands of our proletarian class during the present period. We did it – above all, in the revolts of the last years, fighting in the streets, “where things are heating up” – and we will do so to the extent of our limited possibilities. But, always with this criterion and this perspective, the communist perspective; that is to say, unveiling and pointing out the roots, the limits and the power of the current proletarian struggles and, consequently, maintaining and holding up the revolutionary positions of the proletariat, without compromising or negotiating with the bourgeois State and Social Democracy of any color. The communist perspective is an antagonist perspective.
Furthermore, we communists produce and spread theory in the heat of concrete struggles and accompany them critically in this way, seeking to contribute to produce the revolutionary rupture within them, as so many proletarians in struggle. Because communist theory is not only a form and a moment of class antagonism, but also a product and a factor of the latter. Because the revolutionary rupture is the nucleus of the communist struggle; its organizing principle and, at the same time, its method. And, fundamentally, because the struggles for demands prepare the terrain for the revolutionary struggle; not gradually at all, but by means of rupture and qualitative leap with themselves, with their own limits.
The main limit of the struggles of the proletariat in the present times is its own condition as aclass of labor/capital. Because under the real subsumption or real domination of capital, labor and capital or proletariat and capital are inseparable. This class relation today is in crisis (high rates of unemployment, underemployment, informal economy), but it continues to function and uphold capitalist society in a catastrophic way. And because being proletarians is not a source of pride. It is a social and historical condemnation that must be abolished in order to be truly free, or rather, to be a real, universal and richly diverse community of freely associated individuals who create and fully live their lives as such.
Therefore, the core of communization or communist revolution in the present times is not the affirmation and perpetuation of the proletariat – not even as a ruling class – but the self-abolition of the proletariat as a class of labor/capital. The proletariat is revolutionary or it is nothing. And it is only revolutionary when it struggles to cease to be so. In itself, the self-abolition of the proletariat implies the abolition of labor – understanding that labor is the capitalist mercantile alienation and exploitation of productive human activity –, of capital and of the bourgeoisie. In short, the nucleus of communization is the abolition of the class relation that establishes and crosses all capitalist society, through the production of communist relations between individuals.
Even if it will take several generations to achieve this, the material conditions produced by capitalism itself during the last decades determine that the communist revolution, whose core is the abolition of labor, is more possible today than ever before in history. For example, the technological development currently achieved, once it has been communized, would make it possible to reduce “work” to the minimum necessary and to have free time for the development of all human potentialities and relations.
For its part, the history of the revolutions of the last two centuries demonstrates that we proletarians can indeed make the revolution with our own heads and hands, without the need of those who bring the consciousness or saviors as the Leninist parties believe. And vice versa: it also shows that, if we do not do it in an autonomous and anti-State way, those same who bring the consciousness and saviors will end up being the new ruling class disguised as red, degenerating the proletarian revolution into Leninist counterrevolution.
This does not mean falling into spontaneism, let it be clear. Self-organizing as a community of struggle for social revolution – what Marx and other historical comrades have always called Historical Party –, we proletarians can self-emancipate in all aspects and produce communism to destroy and overcome capitalism.
Communism is not a utopia, nor an ideology, and certainly not that State capitalism misnamed “communism” that existed in the USSR and its satellite countries. “Communism is the real movement that abolishes the present state of things” (Marx, The German Ideology) as well as the new classless and stateless society, without market or national borders, which results from such a revolutionary movement.
Communism is that revolutionary rupture and leap that takes place within the proletarian struggles themselves, even more so in a context of crisis of the class relation such as the present one. Communism is the rupture of the capitalist conditions of existence through the production of new social relations between individuals. Non-mercantile and non-hierarchical relations. Relations based on mutual aid among equals and real freedom, because they have become liberated from value, commodity, private property, work, division of labor, capital, money, social classes, the State, nationalities, races, genders, the division between town and country, the separation between humanity, technology and nature, etc.
Therefore, in the heat of the deepening and extension of class antagonism, only the immanent and immediate production of communism – without a “transition period” – can destroy and leave capitalism behind. The communist revolution does not admit half measures. For he who makes revolutions halfwayisdigging his own grave.
So, the challenge for the communists of the 21st century is not “to wait until all the conditions are met for revolutionary struggle”, but rather to contribute to produce the revolutionary rupture in the heart of the current struggles for demands, far from activism and always against both reformism and opportunism. Far also from spontaneism, because, as we said before, for self-emancipation self-organization is necessary. In fact, self-organization is the first act of the revolution. Thus, the challenge is to contribute to produce the revolutionary rupture, in every possible way, with intransigence and patience at the same time.
How, with what strategy? Not only by producing and spreading communist theory in the heat of concrete struggles, but also by making the community of struggle against capitalism – that is self-organizing anonymous and fed-up proletarians – the anticipation of the communist society of the future within the capitalist society of the present. Trying to live and expand communism as a mycelium, that is, as a mushroom network in the cracks of the global capitalist catastrophe until it is a new world. Producing communism in the heat of the deepening and extension of class antagonism in order to abolish class society. Even if it takes generations to achieve this, the challenge for communists in the 21st century is communization.
Proletarios Hartos de Serlo [Proletarians Fed Up with Being Proletarians] Quito, August 2025
English translation: The Friends of the Class War
1 In reality, there are three types of world-historical period of class antagonism. The third is what a few decades ago the Négation Group called the period of revolutionary resurgence or what today the Barbaria Group calls the bridge period, whose main characteristic is the epochal transition from a counter-revolutionary period to a revolutionary period; a true change of epoch. According to Barbaria, as a result of the world revolt of 2019, the current period is a bridge period or a bridge epoch between the world counterrevolution and the world revolution. However, it is still dominated by the characteristics of the counterrevolution. For this reason, and for the purposes of this article, we affirm that the present period is a counterrevolutionary period. We leave open the comrade discussion on this matter; but to develop it at another time and place, that is to say, in another article.
In February 2025, the Antimilitarist Initiative (AMI) launched a public fundraiser for deserters and war refugees. One year after the fundraiser was announced, we are reflecting on its impact and the broader context.
To begin with, we want to note that our group consists mainly of people who are not fond of the world of social media, which was perceived from the start as a factor that would contribute to the campaign not being as widely known and fewer donations being collected. Social media has become the dominant means of communication and organization all around us, but as is our custom, we swim against the tide, even though this comes with certain difficulties. We realize that the price for the “efficiency” of social media is too high for us to want to “pay” it. We place far greater emphasis on security, privacy, direct communication, and continuity than on speed, quantity, and convenience. Although we used an inefficient fundraising model by today’s standards, we still managed to raise approximately 83,000 CZK (3,320 euros). People from cities such as Athens, Brno, Rome, Vienna, Thessaloniki, Graz, Prague, Bologna, Bucharest, Bratislava, Cologne, Budapest, Toulouse, etc., contributed to the fundraiser.
If we compare the amount we raised with the sums that fuel the war machine on a daily basis, the whole endeavor might seem like a failure. But our standards are different. The basis of success is not the amount of money in the coffers, but above all the fact that the very process of promoting and coordinating the collection has become part of the self-organization of working-class people across various European regions. Throughout, our aim was for the campaign to be interactive and not to replicate a model in which one group actively organizes while another passively contributes money, and that is the end of it for them. Throughout the fundraising process, we placed strong emphasis on exchanging information with one another and using it both to provide practical aid to those affected by the war and to strengthen the infrastructure of resistance against the war. And although we are still a minority, we feel that we have broken through the isolation and fragmentation that previously held us back. We are not in an era where our activities take the form of a mass movement, but we believe that the networking fostered by the fundraising campaign is a very practical tool for the future of the working class’s class struggle.
Most of the funds have so far been allocated to five areas:
1) Covering travel expenses and the transport of relief supplies
2) Providing shelter for people who have fled the war zone
3) Providing food and basic necessities
4) Media outreach and sharing practical information about the situation of deserters and ways to support them
5) Purchasing equipment for secure information exchange, communication, and coordination of solidarity activities
Naturally, it cannot openly state exactly where the money has been or will be used. Unlike those who finance war, we are at a disadvantage in that our activities will always be criminalized, punished, and suppressed. All opponents of military service, deserters, saboteurs, and those who assist them are labeled as enemies by the state. In war, people can legally fund machines of mass murder, but helping to save the lives of those who refuse to continue the war or sabotage it is labeled as a punishable act of treason. To protect ourselves and those we assist, we must be cautious and cannot disclose specific details about our activities. We thank all our friends who understand this, trust us, and have no doubt that we will use the donations effectively where they are needed. The fundraiser for deserters and war refugees is still ongoing. We thank everyone who has contributed, as well as those who will do so in the future.
Renee Nicole Good’s State murder by US Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (ICE), and its slanderous cover up, show what they would really like to do to if they could get away with it. In fact, what they would do in any case if push came to shove.
In Minneapolis, the city of the George Floyd’s police murder in 2020 during Trumps first presidency, in the resistance to the assault on migrant workers, push has again become shove.
According to the Guardian newspaper (04/01/26), ICE is responsible for 32 deaths in custody in the last year. Another dozen also estimated being killed since they were sent to occupy the heartlands of what Trump perceives his opposition.
These primarily being the liberal opposition centres of democrat held governorships and mayoralties such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and of course in Minneapolis.
ICE, uniformed, masked, without numbers or other ID resemble Putin’s ‘little green men’ from the occupation of Crimea. They silently occupy, block, snatch and bring fear.
This is their job, yet these goons of the state have the nerve to claim they were being ‘stalked’ by legal witness Renee Good whilst on intimidation duty.
She had just witnessed them repeatedly pulling to the ground and spraying pepper spray into the faces of a peaceful picket of residents and neighbours protesting the occupation.
4 armed masked men allege ‘fear for their lives’ as they surrounded Renee’s car stuck in the ice before shooting unarmed 37-year-old mother of 3 at point blank range.
Collapsing at the wheel, her car is seen sliding forward and crashing into another a few yards away as stunned onlookers try to intervene. Despite ICE agents dragging her out into the snow, their cars prevented access for ambulances for a further 15 minutes.
Renee Good is accused of ‘domestic terrorism’ ostensibly for blocking the road in her attempts to monitor ICE brutality, though in reality for inconveniently dying in plain sight.
Her murder coincides with the closure of a city school after ICE goons went in using force and chemical sprays to disperse high school students at the end of the school day according to local news outlet MPS News.
A school official is quoted as saying: “They don’t care. They’re just animals…I’ve never seen people behave like this.” The state has both motive and capacity to be violent anywhere, everywhere all at once.
This is less a sign of the times than the times themselves as capitalism unravels in a social decomposition as a result of austerity and its relentless drive to generalised war for profit.
Peace and War are increasingly indistinguishable as the latter offers annihilation, while the former is a bloody occupation driving us towards it.
Resistance to the occupation is growing at this time of writing. All resistance to the state and capitalism at war or peace is more urgent now than ever before.
While imperialisms circus distracts our attention with its smoke and mirrors towards a potential attack on Iran to take advantage of the mass protests and resistance against it’s regime, it initiates a new front in its global war against our class by launching strikes in Venezuela, South America.
The fate of the dictator Maduro is of little interest to us, though the slaughter of our class, conscripted again to defend one faction’s oil interests against anothers is a dramatic increase in the threat of our annihilation.
With Iran, and now quite possibly Cuba which is dependent on Venezuelan oil in the sights of the US, all of strategic interest to China, the fault lines of global capitalist rivalry are now aflame in South America as well as Africa, Europe,the Middle East and elsewhere in Asia.
Our role as revolutionary internationalists must be to denounce each side of serving its respective capitalist state or factional masters and call for an escalation of the Class War at home to hinder the warfare state. We support for all those resisting the drive to generalised war! Solidarity with resistors, deserters and those actively sabotaging the front lines.
No return to capitalist peace. just a repressive pause and austerity assault preparing for the next bloody conflict!
For resistance and escalation on all fronts. Class War against imperialist war! Working class resistance and solidarity against capitalist and state brutality!
The Network of Anarchist Internationalists, January 3th, 2026
A statement in support of Solidarity Collectives and ABC-Belarus has been published on the internet, signed by a number of groups and individuals. https://www.solidaritycollectives.org/en/on-silencingvoices-from-eastern-europe-at-anarchist-events-in-eu/ We are publishing our response, which is not, however, a dialogue with these open and covert supporters of militarism. We simply want to share our analysis publicly and strengthen the connection between people with an anti-militarist and revolutionary defeatist perspective.
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The statement to which we are responding was written by supporters of the war, who reproduce a binary narrative for this purpose: empathetic and supportive Eastern European anarchists versus arrogant and unsupportive anarchists from Western Europe. This narrative is false and manipulative. Those who share this narrative refuse to acknowledge that criticism of pro-war projects such as Solidarity Collectives and ABC (Belarus) also exists within the anarchist milieu in Eastern Europe. The signatories of the statement ignore this anti-militarist tendency in their narrative or lie when they claim that these are Putinists or pro-Russian propagandists. They repeatedly claim that the “Eastern European voice” is overlooked in Western Europe, while they themselves overlook anti-militarist and anti-war voices from Eastern European regions. It should be added that these overlooked voices also come from a relatively large number of people directly from the war zone. By this we mean not only anarchist collectives, but also other working-class people who refuse to support the war efforts of “their” and neighboring states. Let’s look at how many people have deserted from the Russian and Ukrainian armies and how many people in both countries are avoiding mobilization(1). Hundreds of thousands of people are ignored by this “radical left” that tells us it represents the voices of Eastern Europe and fights against the arrogance of the West. Their binary narrative is hypocritical. The contradiction is not between anarchists from the West and those from the East. There is only a contradiction between the revolutionary and counterrevolutionary tendencies, which exist in all regions.
We quote from their statement:“They are writing various kinds of “statements” condemning work in support of Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion.”
We respond: We do not condemn resistance to the Russian invasion. We are not even opposed to armed struggle, as long as it does not replicate militaristic logic and is directed against states and their armies. However, we reject the strategy of conventional warfare and militaristic forms of struggle. From an anarchist perspective, resistance to the aggressive policies of one state (e.g., Russia) should not be a practical service in the defense of another state (e.g., Ukraine). We support autonomous resistance against Putinism and Russian imperialism, but also against the Zelensky regime and EU/NATO imperialism. This is anarchist resistance against war.
We quote from their statement:“We believe in the need for dialogue on controversial issues.”
We respond: They have long presented themselves as “experts in monologue”, but suddenly they pretend to be interested in dialogue. This is not at all convincing. People who deliberately avoid face-to-face dialogue, slander anarchists(2), engage in dangerous doxxing(3), and are verbally and physically aggressive(4) are collaborating on these projects. Some signatories also pressure other groups to prevent anti-militarists from attending anarchist events(5) or directly participate in sabotaging anti-militarist activities(6). We believe that the call for dialogue is a manipulative political calculation in this context. They want to gain spaces in which they will receive money and resources for soldiers. We believe that they do not want to listen to criticism from their opponents and discuss controversial issues. Anarchists have repeatedly expressed critical analysis of their militaristic and pro-war tendencies in the past. There has been no self-reflection or acknowledgment of mistakes. So why insist on dialogue with them? It cannot be a constructive process.
We quote from their statement:“We do not consider the work of the “Solidarity Collectives” and “ABC-Belarus” to be in any way pro-war or supportive of state militarism.”
We respond: Both of these groups provide propaganda, financial, and material support to the soldiers of the Ukrainian army, which is at war with Russia. Why do the signatories of this statement refuse to acknowledge that the Ukrainian army and its soldiers are the embodiment of state militarism? There is no structure more militaristic than a state army. Why do these people refuse to acknowledge that they are defending a pro-war position when they support soldiers of the state army involved in the war? Is it insincerity, political manipulation, or do they fail to understand the basic context? They claim to be against militarism, but when soldiers desert the Ukrainian army or men in Ukraine are forcibly mobilized, they do not show practical solidarity with these people. They object to Russia’s militarism, but the militarism of Ukraine/NATO/EU is their main ally. We refuse to cooperate with them because they advocate cooperation with Western imperialism in its war against Russian imperialism. However, we also do not cooperate with those who cooperate with Russian imperialism, because this is not a constructive strategy that the working class could effectively use against American and European imperialism. We reject all one-sided anti-imperialism. We fight against all imperialist states and blocs.
The list of names and titles under the declaration is very long, but that does not mean it is significant. Socially revolutionary groups do not evaluate the quality of practice by quantitative measures. The number of signatures under a manipulative and deceitful statement does not make it a valuable document. Not even the biggest sum of socially reactionary and pro-war groups can never give rise to revolutionary anarchist practice.
The list of signatories to the aforementioned statement includes quite a few liars, manipulators, aggressors, collaborators with the far right(7), as well as dangerous doxxers and nationalists(8). Groups such as Solidarity Collectives and ABC – Belarus discredit themselves by publicly declaring that they maintain contact with these controversial individuals. If they express concern that anarchists do not want to cooperate with them, this is actually a positive sign. While left-wing supporters of militarism are losing support, the revolutionary anarchist tendency is gaining the necessary energy.
– Some anarchists from Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans
Nepal, Morocco, Madagascar, Indonesia, Peru… In recent months and weeks, massive demonstrations, riots, and even regime changes have taken place in various countries around the world, breathing new life into our most fervent hopes!
In Indonesia, growing outrage over the privileges enjoyed by the elite against a backdrop of austerity reached a tipping point when, on August 28, police killed a young man during a protest in Jakarta and then, on August 31, when videos showing parliamentarians dancing after receiving an indecent housing allowance were made public. In the weeks that followed, riots swept across the country, led by the slogan “Indonesia Gelap, Revolusi Dimulai” (“Indonesia is dark, we are starting the revolution”). Regional parliaments were set on fire and ministers’ residences were looted. The terrible repression, which mobilized the police and army, and led to dozens of deaths and disappearances, has achieved its goal of intimidation since… The movement was also unique in that its symbol was the flag of One Piece, a manga about pirates and their thirst for freedom, a symbol that was later taken up in Nepal, Madagascar, and Peru.
In Nepal, the movement, which initially denounced nepotism and the privileges of the ruling caste, was destructive. On September 9, after weeks of clashes in Kathmandu that left more than 70 people dead, protesters stormed the Parliament and the residences of several members of the government, including the Prime Minister’s one, and burned them to the ground! Because you never stop when you’re on a roll, the headquarters of the Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist-Leninist, the ruling party), the CPN (the Maoist opposition, which called on protesters to remain peaceful), and the Nepali Congress were vandalized by rioters, and the Kailali district prison was attacked and set on fire, allowing all prisoners to regain their freedom!
In Morocco, it was the death of eight women after giving birth by Caesarean section in Agadir due to the lack of resources in the Moroccan health sector that sparked the unrest. From the very first days of the protests, the authorities cracked down by arresting or beating up massively the protesters, but the rebels continued to pour into the streets.
Recently, the GenZ 212 collective, one of the movement’s faces, announced that the protests did not challenge the foundations of the royal authority, that they must remain peaceful, and that calls for action would be temporarily suspended following King Mohammed VI’s promises of reform (even though, at the same time, the justice system was handing down sentences of several years in prison to many protesters).
We won’t fall into that trap! The young Moroccans who took to the streets, set them ablaze, destroyed police stations, were shot while trying to storm police stations to seize weapons and ammunition, and injured more than 300 police officers were anything but peaceful and certainly did not have improving public services in mind!
In Madagascar, the demonstrations and calls for strikes began as a result of exasperation caused by water and electricity cuts imposed on the population and they spread to a widespread challenge to the ruling power, while the island is experiencing massive poverty. The authorities reacted as they know so well how to do: tear gas, beatings up, live ammunition… In the days that followed, despite the deaths and the curfew, the movement intensified and massive looting broke out: supermarkets, shops, banks, hotels… everything was targeted, despite calls for calm from democrats!
In Peru, it is also a widespread system of corruption among those in power and new pension reforms that are being denounced, mainly by students. In Lima, demonstrations punctuated by violent clashes with the police, Molotov cocktails, and attempts to storm the Congress have been repeated in recent weeks. On October 10, President Dina Boluarte was removed from office, which is “only one step” according to many of the rebels.
While the explicit demands of these movements refer to social justice, the fight against corruption, or against the mismanagement of public services, we can only see in all these protests a widespread challenging of the living conditions imposed on the exploited of this world. Everywhere, what is being attacked is the State and its bureaucracy, as well as the political class (even those who historically claim to be “revolutionary”, such as the Stalinist substitutes of the various Communist Parties, as in Nepal). What is being attacked is the bourgeoisie that is getting rich on the backs of the exploited. What is being attacked is the misery caused by pitiful wages or forced unemployment, the restrictions and lack of resources, the cops who protect the exploiters with batons and guns, the lack of future prospects in this shitty world.
We can also detect an anti-political force that partly underlies these demonstrations. In several of these movements, as in Nepal, it was the world of politicians in general, of all political persuasions, that was attacked for a time. It was the widespread enrichment of all the bourgeois and leaders that was called into question, as evidenced by the attacks on Parliament and the homes of parliamentarians. However, we can see that the siren calls of democracy and their endless promises of reform, appeasement, and judicial repression of former decision-makers are, unfortunately, still working just as well as ever. In Nepal, a new Prime Minister was chosen on Discord (which had been a decisive tool in the movement) after the fall of the government; in Morocco, the reforms promised by the king put the movement on hold; in Indonesia, the movement has ended while waiting for the promised changes; in Madagascar, a technocrat has been appointed Prime Minister; and in Peru, the opposition has taken advantage of the situation to remove the president from office, surely waiting to take her place and rule in turn…
Capitalism and the State, like snakes that shed their skin but never die, know how to constantly reinvent themselves in order to recuperate the most fervent hopes and integrate them. We must at all costs ask ourselves why and how democracy so easily co-opt revolts that are so offensive in material terms and can restore another authority that will change nothing.
Incidentally, it is surprising that in France, there is more interest in careerist deputies on show in the media than in people who attack their own deputies.
From Indonesia and Nepal to everywhere else, long live the revolt against the old world!
Although part of a long wave of mass urban mobilizations spanning years, the wild series of uprisings in Indonesia today began on the 25th of August, when students and workers led demonstrations against proposed additional housing allowances for parliament members, raising their salaries 10 times higher than the national minimum wage of the Indonesian working class. Parliamentary allowances are only the latest in Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s ferocious attacks on the working class, aided by creeping militarization and guided by the diktat of neoliberal austerity: cutting spending worth trillions of rupiah on education, welfare, and public health. Since Thursday of August 28th, with the murder of Affan Kurniawan, a 21-year-old rideshare motorbike driver—run over by an armored military vehicle commandeered by Jakarta police to crush the uprising—we have only seen the acceleration of spreading protests throughout the islands, and the escalation of violence and anger amid the protesters, with a number of politicians’ assets looted and burned to the ground—including, according to Perhimpunan Merdeka (Freedom Association), about half-a-dozen regional offices of the House of Representatives.
On the ground, several of the groups and individuals involved have been among the anarchists and communists, insurrectionaries notwithstanding, organized and otherwise. Demands have been made by various groups, featuring in particular two: Perhimpunan Merderka’s (PM; Freedom Association) demand to abolish the unitary government in favor of direct democracy through “People’s Councils”, and Perhimpunan Sosialis Revolusioner’s (PSR; Revolutionary Socialist Association) call for the workers to take the fight to the factories and workplaces to form and coordinate strike committees and worker’s councils.
In light of recent reports of discouragement, deescalation, and a generalizing urge to retreat, Marxist Forum calls on our anarchist and communist Indonesian comrades to push for a maximalist program within the assemblies and coordinating councils. This entails the organization of self-defense militias—for every worker, a rifle; rearrangement of production away from the capitalists and towards social appropriation, sustaining the rebellions and keeping the workers from going back to work; coordinating with workers of key industries to halt production and operations such as in ports and airfreight, shutting down the national economy; seizing the telecommunication and data centers to facilitate continuous in-flow of information within and with-out of the country, and;
Above all, to RESIST ANY AND ALL ATTEMPTS AT NEGOTIATION. Hijack the union leaderships, expel the middlemen and negotiators of labor, stand against the peace-makers who wish to restore the reproduction of the status quo, resist by any means necessary the cooptation of the rebellions for vested political interests by groups who wish to delimit the Indonesian proletariat’s class anger and make a turn towards liberal pacifism and passivity. The responsibility of the most conscious and organized elements of the rebellions, without taking ownership of the movement and fighting the tendency to lag behind the proletariat in rebellion, is to push the class to advance wherever it lags. The anarchists and communists should not be afraid to go past the proletariat, wherever it is reluctant to advance, and make the class conscious of where it is going and what needs to be done to get there!
The class, while still acting as a class, is now in the political arena. To generalize the rebellions into a full insurrection, it is ever-necessary to imbue the sites of struggle with a clear communising direction and go past the economic and political, to directly and immediately appropriate the social. Comrades, the Indonesian proletariat is on the brink of something potentially bigger than all of us. To take the next step, the class must be compelled to intervene into history directly and begin the conscious communisation of Indonesian society.
BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY; THERE CAN BE NO COMPROMISE.
We are not criminals. We are people. Men and women who refused to become casualties of the war of two regimes. We refuse to be held hostage by political contracts and military plans. The Ukrainian government is currently preparing Law No. 13673, which criminalises everyone who has escaped the mobilisation. Anyone who refuses to return to the trenches faces a risk of imprisonment, deportation, and a forceful conscription into the army.
This law entails:
• mass criminalisation of deserters and conscientious objectors,
• automatic placement into registers,
• collaboration of secret services and courts,
• threat of extradition back to Ukraine.
• This is not a defence of freedom – it is its end.
Ukrainian deserters and conscientious objectors of military service need our solidarity. Their struggle is also our fight for:
• a right to live,
• a right to not be sent to a battlefront,
• a right to refuse the state and its war.
Therefore, we urge you:
📢 Let’s flood Ukrainian embassies and consulates with protest letters, petitions, emails, phone calls, and faxes. (See the sample of protest letter at the bottom of the article)
📢 Let’s organise public solidarity events in front of Ukrainian embassies and during the visits of Ukrainian politicians in your country.
📢 Download the posters and flyers and hand them out to your Ukrainian colleagues and neighbours – let them know that they should not return to Ukraine and that we approve of their decision not to fight. (The PDF poster is available to download at the bottom of the article, or you can get it by contacting us)
📢 Express your support to Ukrainian men and their families who have left their country so that they would avoid mobilisation and recruitment into war (In Czechia, the estimate is about 150 000 men, in Slovakia it is about 50 000. In the entire EU it concerns approximately 750-800 000 people!)
📢 Translate the appeal into other languages and organise a similar campaign in your country. Keep us informed!
📢 Let’s stand on the side of those who say NO to militarism and war.
Each day of silence is a step further to deserters being deprived of their future. But together we can be the voice that cannot be silenced.
Glory to the deserters! Glory to conscientious objectors!
Send a letter and/or email to Ukrainian embassies and consulates in your country. Use both options to increase the pressure.
Subject: A protest against criminalisation of Ukrainian conscientious objectors and deserters
Dear Ambassador,
We are addressing you on behalf of the citizens of [your country] who disapprove of the war and who stand on the side of human dignity. It is with great concern that we observe the Ukrainian government preparing and promoting repressive measures in the form of Law No. 13673, directed against those who refused to be drawn into war. The draft of such laws criminalising conscientious objectors of military service and deserters is an attack on basic human rights.
We reject the idea of sacrificing human lives in an endless war conflict. The people who decided to leave Ukraine in order not to kill or die are not criminals. They are the people who had the courage to say NO to the war.
We ask you to convey our concerns and dissent to the Government of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Parliament, with a demand for:
1. An immediate halt to the preparation of the laws that threaten conscientious objectors and deserters, specifically Law No. 13673.
2. Respecting the right to refuse military service as guaranteed by the International human rights treaties.
3. Ensuring the protection of those who refused the war – whether in Ukraine or abroad.
We perceive the solidarity with Ukraine as solidarity with its ordinary working people who want to live in peace – not as a support of militarism and repression.
AnarCom Network 