A letter from a social class struggle anarchist.

Another article off the A-infos newswire, this one from a very frustrated comrade in Greece. I’ve written a fair amount about the same kinds of feelings and I think a lot of what he’s saying is just as true about the movement in North America – there are far too few real revolutionaries and far too many angry kids who just want to smash things.

Not that smashing things can’t be a good thing in the right circumstances (think Boston Tea Party), but destruction for its own sake is a problem because it alienates the majority and marginalizes radicals. Renouncing the Vanguardism of Marxism and taking an Anarchist approach to Class Struggle means we need to be able to mobilize the working class en masse in order to win. Our strength – and our only hope for victory – is in numbers.

So yes to protests! yes to mass actions! yes to self-defense against police violence! yes to occupying space and standing up to reclaim the commons! but please, let’s be smart and not reinforce the negative stereotypes about anarchists that the mass media here, in greece, and worldwide works so hard to perpetuate..

(en) Greece, Athens, A letter from a social class struggle anarchist.

Date Thu, 29 Jan 2009 18:58:57 +0200

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Dear Comrades, I don’t have to go to work until Monday so I am in a position to say a few things about the majority of the Greek anarchists. —- This majority supports a vague kind of anarchism; for these persons the very big differences between Proudhon, Bakunin, Malatesta, Cafiero, Kropotkin, Camillo Berneri, Bookchin and so on, are simply details. Why so? Because after reading a
few anarchist pamphlets they think that there is no need to read any more and examine more carefully the thinking of each of the above-mentioned theoreticians. Moreover they think they “know” – after reading only a few pamphlets! And who are those that don’t know? The entire Greek population (minus these two hundred people)!! —- These anarchists think that we need no theories – we need violent actions to radicalise any social upheaval. For them, the only activity which has any importance is violent action – the only true action!!

What do we really have? Uneducated anarchists (they don’t think before acting, they don’t think after acting and they don’t think of the consequences of their actions), they are the supporters of an anarchism which has never existed (they are not individualists, not syndicalists, nor communists – they are simply “anarchists”) believers in the one and only solution for all the “problems”
(violence) and they are elitist (they “know”, and all the others don’t “know”).

In fact given the mindless action of these anarchists the Greek state has no need of provocateurs. Their participation in a demonstration always leads to their direct confrontation with the police and dispersal of the demonstrators. Of course they don’t give a damn about the purpose(s) of the demonstrations.

Maybe what I say sounds strange to your ears but it is true. Besides its only 10% of the whole “story”. If I tell you all the story.

Concerning the social upheaval of the last few days I am glad because, after many years, I have the opportunity to speak about a real social upheaval. Straight after the murder of young Alexandros, in a few hours, demonstrations organised all over Greece, through the SMS of mobile phones, with the participation of old and young alike, students and workers, parents with their children, Greeks and non-Greeks, teaches and pupils (boys and girls of 12 years old), soldiers and civilians, and so on. In a few hours all the barriers that keep the working class divided disappeared!! The confrontations with the police this time (I’m talking about the violent confrontations that took place on Saturday, Sunday and Monday at noon) were necessarily violent in order to keep each demonstration going on – the minimum violence to achieve the specific purpose. Right after the murder, the demonstrators appealed continually to the “general public” to come and unite with them in an act of solidarity, self-respect, anger and resistance to the vicious situation created by the two ruling class parties. Many of the demonstrators occupied television and radio stations to make their appeal(s). The first day after in the schools all the students appeared wearing black clothes. In only two and a half days a movement had been created!

In order to divide this movement the ruling class decided to withdraw the police forces from the streets, on Monday evening in every city and every town all over Greece – in the hope that the usual action (the mindless violence) of the usual two hundred anarchists would generate fear among the demonstrators, fear in the “general public” about their shops, their cars, fear of parents about the participation of their children in the demonstrations, and disagreements in the movement about the “amount” of necessary violence and so on.

Happily the movement went forward without even a pause as Monday night’s burnings showed, and on the next day (Tuesday) schools, colleges and polytechnics were occupied thus preserving the social character of the movement intact.

Unfortunately then came the Christmas holidays and no-one knows what will happen on 1 January when the schools again open their doors.

Please read the statements of the Greek anarchists carefully. Most of them are revolutionaries in word only in order to justify their mindless violent actions.

Which way forward for the movement? It depends (as always) on the movement itself – in the ability of its participants to think further about what they have achieved already, what more they want to achieve and the ways and means by which their struggle can be conducted. Happily they continue to make appeals to other parts of the working class to take part in the movement and to dynamically expand its goals.

So it also depends (as always) on the willingness of those parts of the working class to “transfer” the struggle into their workplaces and into their communities. Otherwise without this and other dynamic expansions of the movement it will, sooner or later become “sterile”, just one more student movement and will die out. All this isn’t theory. We have seen it happen many times before…

Comradely yours
Spyros Nea Smyrni — Athens – Greece 31-12-2008
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Posted: January 29th, 2009 under news.
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